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LIFE OF 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 



BY 



JOHN S. JENKINS 



ABRIDGED AND EDITED FOR THIS SERIES BY 



JOHN R. HOWARD 




JOHN c. Calhoun 



\ 



MAKERS OF 
AMERICAN 
H I STORY 



John Caldwell Calhoun 

BY 

JOHN S. JENKINS 

DANIEL WEBSTER 

BY 

EDWARD EVERETT 

HENRY CLAY 

BY 

EPES SARGENTand HORACE GREELEY 



THE UNIVERSITY SOCIETY 

INCORPORATED 

NEW YORK 1904 






THE LIBPapy OF 
CONGRESS, 

Onf Copy Recpmto 

^EC; 3 1904 

SLASS O. Wo M^ 
COP Y d 



Copyright 1904 
The University Society, Inc. 






EDITOR'S PREFACE 



Calhoun, Webster, and Clay were by far the 
ablest public men of their generation. The three were 
born, flourished, and died in singular coincidenee 
of dates, Calhoun's lifetime being from 1782 to 
1850, Webster's from 1782 to 1852, and Clay's from 
1777 to 1852. The first two may be said to have 
represented, at the time of their greatest activity, 
the extremes of the political discussions of their day, 
and Mr. Clay, the middle-ground of attempted 

reconciliation. 

The biography of Mr. Calhoun, selected for this 
series, was written by a warm friend and devoted 
adherent of the subject of the memoir; and by this 
choice the publishers offer the advantage of a sympa- 
thetic view of the ideas and aims of the man to be 
studied. On the other hand, any portrayal of a man 
powerful in political life is sure to contain a great 
amount of detail which rapidly fades out of the pub- 
lic interest as his generation recedes into the past. 
Personal disagreements and conflicts, explanations 
of misunderstandings, justifications of this or that 
deed or word, important in its time, but now long 
forgotten ; extracts from speeches to illustrate politi- 
cal views or personal characteristics which time has 
now established, etc.— these and similar superfluities 

9 



lo editor's preface 

have been cut out of this earnest and interesting re- 
cital of Mr. Calhoun's activities. The main line of 
narrative, however, and the political preferences and 
even prejudices of the author — a man writing from 
the heart and intensely in earnest — have been scru- 
pulously preserved. 

The author, Mr. John S. Jenkins, was a Southern 
historical writer, well equipped for presenting the 
peculiarly Southern view, which he had done before 
in his *' History of the War with Mexico " and his 
" Life of James K. Polk," the President under whom 
that war was waged. In this memoir he gives a 
compact and useful sketch of the greatest of the 
great Southerners who have served illustriously in 
the Senate of the United States. 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE 



For about forty years, Mr. Calhoun was one of 
the most prominent statesmen in the American 
Union, and during that long period their history is 
woven together. No important question was agi- 
tated since he first entered Congress in which he did 
not participate or with which he was not in some 
way or other connected. His biography, therefore, 
if told aright should be full of interest to the Ameri- 
can reader. 

I have been aware of the difficulties and embar- 
rassments in the way of preparing a memoir that 
would be acceptable to both of the parties occupying 
extreme grounds on the sectional question with 
which Mr. Calhoun was identified. It has been my 
aim, however, to present all things truly; and, hav- 
ing done this, to rely upon the generous kindness of 
the public. . . . 

Mr. Calhoun was emphatically a great man, — a 
model statesman, — one of those who visit us, like 
angels, " few and far between." He lived in eventful 
times, and his history is full of important incidents. 
A minute account, therefore, of the details of his 
life would require a much larger volume than the 
present. But it is the design of this work to exhibit 
his character with sufficient distinctness to satisfy 



12 AUTHOR S PREFACE 

the general reader and faithfully to represent his 
course and position with reference to the important 
questions that arose during his public career. . . . 
No apology need be offered for occupying so large 
a space with the history of Nullification. It was the 
great episode in the life of Mr. Calhoun, and the 
principle of State interposition, or State veto, was 
very dear to him. " If you should ask me the word," 
said he, " that I would wish engraven on my tomb- 
stone, it is Nullification."" 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 



CHAPTER I 

Ancestors. — His Father. — Characteristic Traits. — His Birth. 

The paternal ancestors of Mr. Calhoun came 
originally from Ireland, that fruitful hive from 
which sprung most of the early inhabitants of the 
eastern slopes of the Alleghany Mountains. His 
grandfather emigrated with his family to Pennsyl- 
vania in the year 1733; they afterward removed to 
Virginia, and in 1756 finally established themselves 
permanently in the province of South Carolina, near 
the base of the Blue Ridge, and in the fine healthy 
region drained by the tributaries of the Savannah 
River. 

His father, Patrick Calhoun, was born in Donegal, 
but was a mere child when the family left Ireland. 
Accustomed from his earliest years to sights and 
scenes well calculated to heighten the natural daring 
of his spirit, and to render him courageous and self- 
reliant; familiar with hardship and privation, with 
war and bloodshed; he was distinguished for his 
boldness and intrepidity, his determined energy, and 
his manly independence, — traits which were repro- 
duced and reexemplified in the life and character of 

^3 



14 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

his distinguished son. The family were driven from 
their temporary home in Virginia by the hordes of 
ruthless savages let loose upon the frontier settle- 
ments in consequence of the defeat of Braddock, and 
in the hostile encounters that took place previous to 
their removal, Patrick was old enough to take a 
prominent part. He subsequently participated in the 
frequent skirmishes between the white settlers of 
South Carohna and the Cherokee Indians previous 
to and during the Revolution. For a long time he 
commanded a company of rangers, who did good 
service in keeping off the marauders that hovered 
upon the borders of the infant colpnj, seeking an 
opportunity to plunder and destroy. 

His occupation was that of a farmer or planter, 
and he resided upon and cultivated the same place 
where his father's family first settled, and which 
now belongs to the heirs of his youngest son. He 
was married in 1770 to a young lady, whose maiden 
name was Caldwell, and who was a native of Char- 
lotte County, Virginia. Her father was a Scotch- 
Irish Presbvterian, and was one of the founders of 
the settlement on Cub Creek. 

The elder Air. Calhoun was an industrious and en- 
terprising citizen. To great natural shrewdness he 
added an inquiring disposition, and a boldness and 
independence of sentiment that were rarely imitated. 
He thought, and spoke, and acted for himself. He 
was a Whig in principle long before the Revolution, 
and when the crisis came, he did not hesitate public- 
ly to make profession of " the faith that was in him." 
He battled manfully against the Tories; he con- 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 1$ 

tended with them in speech ; and at the head of his 
rangers aided essentially in putting them down with 
the strong hand. Both the Caldwells and the Cal- 
houns were active and zealous Whigs. As such, 
they were the peculiar objects of the red man's hate 
and the Tory's vengeance. 

Patrick Calhoun was a man of entire self-confi- 
dence and great independence of opinion and of 
character. He once appeared as his own advocate 
in a case in Virginia, in which he recovered a tract 
of land in despite of the regularly-trained disputants, 
who sought to embarrass and defeat him. He op- 
posed the Federal Constitution, because, as he said, 
it permitted other people than those of South Caro- 
lina to tax the people of South Carolina, and thus 
allowed taxation without representation, which was 
a violation of the fundamental principle of the revo- 
lutionary struggle. 

" We have heard his son say," writes a biographer 
of John C. Calhoun, " that among his earliest recol- 
lections was one of a conversation when he was nine 
years of age, in which his father maintained that 
government to be best which allowed the largest 
amount of individual liberty compatible with social 
order and tranquillity, and insisted that the improve- 
ments in political science would be found to consist 
in throwing off many of the restraints then imposed 
by law, and deemed necessary to an organized so- 
ciety. It may well be supposed that his son John 
was an attentive and eager auditor, and such lessons 
as these must doubtless have served to encourage 
that free spirit of inquiry, and that intrepid zeal for 



l6 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

truth, for which he has been so much distinguished. 
The mode of thinking which was thus encouraged 
may, perhaps, have compensated in some degree for 
the want of those early advantages which are gen- 
erally deemed indispensable to great intellectual 
progress. 

Patrick Calhoun died in 1795. His wife was a 
woman of rare excellence, whose many virtues en- 
deared her to all that knew her, and are still held in 
grateful remembrance by those who witnessed the 
evidences of her worth and profited by her kindness. 
They had five children, four sons and a daughter, of 
whom John Caldw^ell Calhoun was the youngest 
save one. He was born in Abbeville District, South 
Carolina, at the residence of his father, on the i8th 
of March, 1782, and was named after his maternal 
uncle, Major John Caldwell, who was murdered by 
the Tories. 



CHAPTER II 

Education. — Professional Reputation. — Politics. — State Legis- 
lature. — Congress. 

Born and nurtured amid the closing scenes of the 
Revohition, and when its dying thunders were still 
heard faintly echoing in the distance, the stirring 
incidents of that protracted contest, and the legends 
and traditions of border warfare, were among the 
first and earliest recollections of young Calhoun. 
They were often recounted in his hearing, and left 
their impress upon his character, in its sternness, 
and what might almost be called its harshness. He 
inherited, too, from his father, the active energy, 
firmness and determination, that characterized him, 
and from his mother's family, their ardency of feel- 
ing, and their high-toned and impulsive enthusiasm. 
When a lad he was remarked for his thoughtful dis- 
position, his quickness of apprehension, his decision 
of character, and his steady and untiring persever- 
ance in the accomplishment of any plan he had con- 
ceived, or in the pursuit of any object which he de- 
sired to secure. 

Mr. Calhoun was indebted for the most part to his 
father and mother for the information acquired in 
his youth. There were few or no schools in the 
sparsely settled district where they resided, and the 
only branches of education taught in them were 

A. B., VOL. VI. — 2 17 



1 8 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

reading, writing, and arithmetic. When he was old 
enough they sent him to an ordinary country school, 
at which he learned all that his teacher could com- 
municate. These draughts from the fountain, turbid 
though it was, created a thirst for more ; but as there 
was not a single academy in the whole upper region 
of the State, and none within fifty miles, except in 
Columbia County, Georgia, of which Mr. Waddell, 
a Presbyterian clergyman who had married his sis- 
ter, was the principal. 

At the age of thirteen he was placed under the 
care of his brother-in-law, and commenced a course 
of study in the higher branches. He had but just 
made a beginning in this new occupation, with which 
he was perfectly delighted, when the death of his 
father took place. His sister shortly after died, and 
Mr. Waddell immediately discontinued his academy. 
John continued to reside with his brother-in-law ; 
but as the latter was absent for the greater part of 
the time, engaged in the performance of clerical 
duties, he was left to depend upon his own resources 
for amusement. The plantation was in a remote dis- 
trict, and he had not a single white companion, with 
the exception, at intervals, of Mr. Waddell, and an 
occasional visitor. 

His brother-in-law was the librarian of a small 
circulating library, and to this he at once resorted. 
Rollin's " Ancient History," Robertson's " Life of 
Charles V." and " History of America," and a 
translation of Voltaire's " Charles XH." first at- 
tracted his attention. Having despatched these vol- 
umes, he took up the large edition of Cook's " Voy- 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 1 9 

ages," Brown's " Essays," and Locke on the " Un- 
derstanding," the last of which he was unable to 
finish, for the reason that he had already overtasked 
his strength. 

" All this was the work of but fourteen weeks. So 
intense was his application that his eyes became seri- 
ously affected, his countenance pallid, and his frame 
emaciated. His mother, alarmed at the intelligence 
of his health, sent for him home, where exercise and 
amusement soon restored his strength, and he ac- 
quired a fondness for hunting, fishing, and other 
country sports. Four years passed away in these 
pursuits, and in attention to the business of the farm 
while his elder brothers were absent, to the entire 
neglect of his education. 

" About this time an incident occurred upon which 
turned his after life. His second brother, James, 
who had been placed at a counting-house in Charles- 
ton, returned to spend the summer of 1800 at home. 
John had determined to become a planter ; but James, 
objecting to this, strongly urged him to acquire a 
good education, and pursue one of the learned pro- 
fessions. He replied that he was not averse to the 
course advised, but there were two difficulties in the 
way: one was to obtain the assent of his mother, 
without which he could not think of leaving her, and 
the other was the want of means. His property was 
small, and his resolution fixed : he would far rather 
be a planter than a half-informed physician or law- 
yer. With this determination, he could not bring 
his mind to select either without ample preparation ; 
but if the consent of their mother should be freely 



20 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

given, and he (James) thought he could so manage 
his property as to keep him in funds for seven years 
of study, preparatory to entering his profession, he 
would leave home and commence his education the 
next week. His mother and brother agreeing to his 
conditions, he accordingly left home the next week 
for the school of Dr. Waddell, who had married 
again, and resumed his academy in Columbia 
County, Georgia. This was in June, 1800, in the 
beginning of his nineteenth year, at which time it 
may be said he commenced his education, his tuition 
having been previously very imperfect, and con- 
fined to reading, writing, and arithmetic, in an ordi- 
nary country school. His progress here was so 
rapid that in two years he entered the junior class of 
Yale College, and graduated with distinction in 
1804, just four years from the time he commenced 
his Latin grammar. He was highly esteemed by 
Dr. Dwight, then the president of the college, al- 
though they differed widely in politics, and at a time 
when political feelings were intensely bitter. The 
doctor was an ardent Federalist, and Mr. Calhoun 
was one of a very few, in a class of more than 
seventy, who had the firmness openly to avow and 
maintain the opinions of the Republican party, and, 
among others, that the people were the only legiti- 
mate source of political power. Dr. Dwight enter- 
tained a different opinion. In a recitation during the 
senior year, on the chapter in " Politics " in Paley's 
" Moral Philosophy," the doctor, with the intention of 
eliciting his opinion, propounded to Mr. Calhoun 
the question as to the legitim.ate source of power. 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 2 1 

He did not decline an open and direct avowal of his 
opinion. A discussion ensued between them, which 
exhausted the time allotted for the recitation, and in 
which the pupil maintained his opinions with such 
vigor of argument and success, as to elicit from his 
distinguished teacher the declaration, in speaking of 
him to a friend, that the young man had talent 
enough to be President of the United States, which 
he accompanied by a prediction that he would one 
day attain that station." * 

At the commencenient, an English oration was as- 
signed to Mr. Calhoun. The subject which he se- 
lected was — '' The qualifications necessary to con- 
stitute a perfect statesman" — from which it may be 
inferred that he had already set his heart upon a 
political career, and that he loved to contemplate that 
beau ideal in statesmanship, wdiich he afterward at- 
tempted to illustrate in his own career. Having 
taken his degree, he commenced the study of the law, 
which he regarded as the stepping-stone to the higher 
position at which he aimed. He spent three years 
in his legal studies, and in miscellaneous reading. 
For about half this time, he attended the celebrated 
law school at Litchfield, Connecticut, under the 
charge of Judge Reeve and Mr. Gould, at which so 
many of the most eminent members of the profession 
in the Northern and Southern States received their 
legal education. At this school he acquired and 
maintained a high reputation for ability and applica- 
tion, and in the debating society formed among its 
members, he successfully cultivated his talents for 

* Biographical Sketch of Mr. Calhoun, 1843. 



22 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

extemporary speaking, and in this respect is admitted 
to have excelled all his associates. 

On leaving Litchfield, Mr. Calhoun repaired to 
Charleston, and entered the office of Mr. De Saus- 
sure, subsequently Chancellor of South Carolina, in 
order to familiarize himself with the statute laws of 
his State, and the practice of the courts. In the 
office of Mr. De Saussure, and of Mr. George 
Bowie, of Abbeville, he completed his studies. He 
then presented himself for examination, was duly 
admitted to the bar in 1807, and commenced practice 
in the Abbeville District. He immediately took a 
place in the front rank of his profession, among the 
ablest and most experienced of its members. 

'* While he was yet a student," says the memoir 
before cjuoted, '' after his return from Litchfield to 
Abbeville, an incident occurred which agitated the 
whole Union, and contributed to give to Mr. Cal- 
houn's life, at that early period, the political direc- 
tion which it has ever since kept — the attack of the 
English frigate Leopard on the American frigate 
Chesapeake. It led to public meetings all over the 
Union, in which resolutions were passed expressive 
of the indignation of the people, and their firm re- 
solve to stand by the government in whatever meas- 
ure it might think proper to adopt to redress the out- 
rage. At that called in his native district, he was 
appointed one of the committee to prepare a report 
and resolutions to be presented to a meeting to be 
convened to receive them on an appointed day. Mr. 
Calhoun was requested by the committee to prepare 
them, which he did so much to their satisfaction that 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 23 

he was appointed to address the meeting on the occa- 
sion before the vote was taken on the resolutions. 
The meeting w^as large, and it was the first time he 
had ever appeared before the public. He acquitted 
himself with such success that his name was pre- 
sented as a candidate for the State Legislature at 
the next election. He was elected at the head of the 
ticket, and at a time when the prejudice against 
lawyers was so strong in the district that no one of 
the profession who had offered for many years pre- 
viously had ever succeeded. This was the com- 
mencement of his political life, and the first evidence 
he ever received of the confidence of the people of the 
State — a confidence which has continued ever since 
constantly increasing, without interruption or re- 
action, for the third of a century ; and which, for its 
duration, universality, and strength may almost be 
said to be without a parallel in any other State, or in 
the case of any other public man. 

" He served two sessions in the State Legislature. 
It was not long after he took his seat before he dis- 
tinguished himself. Early in the session an informal 
meeting of the Republican portion of the members 
was called to nominate candidates for the places of 
President and Vice-President of the United States. 
Mr. Madison was nominated for the presidency with- 
out opposition. When the nomination for the vice- 
presidency was presented, Mr. Calhoun embraced 
the occasion to present his opinion in reference to 
coming events, as bearing on the nomination. He 
reviewed the state of the relations between the 
LTnited States and Great Britain and France, the two 



24 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

great belligerents which were then struggling for 
mastery, and in their struggle trampling on the 
rights of neutrals, and especially ours ; he touched 
on the restrictive system which had been resorted to 
by the government to protect our rights, and ex- 
pressed his doubt of its efficacy, and the conviction 
that a war with Great Britain would be unavoidable. 
' It was,' lie said, ' in this state of things, of the ut- 
most importance that the ranks of the Republican 
party should be preserved undisturbed and unbroken 
by faction or discord.' He then adverted to the fact 
that a discontented portion of the party had given 
unequivocal evidence of rallying round the name of 
the venerable vice-president, George Clinton (whose 
re-nomination was proposed), and of whom he spoke 
highly ; but he gave it as his opinion, that sliould he 
be nominated and reelected, he would become the 
nucleus of all the discontented portion of the party, 
and thus make a formidable division in its ranks 
should the country be forced into war. These per- 
sons, he predicted, would ultimately rally under De 
Witt Clinton, the nephew, whom he described as a 
man of distinguished talents and aspiring disposi- 
tion. To avoid the danger, he suggested for nomina- 
tion the name of John Langdon, of New Hampshire, 
of whom he spoke highly both as to talents and 
patriotism. 

'' It was Mr. Calhoun's first effort in a public ca- 
pacity. The manner and matter excited great ap- 
plause ; and when it is recollected that these remarks 
preceded the declaration of war more than three 
years, and how events happened according to his an- 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 2^ 

ticipations, it affords a strikingf proof of that sa- 
gacity, at so early a period, for which he was after- 
wards so much distinguished. It at once gave him a 
stand among the most distinguished members of the 
Legislature. During the short period he remained a 
member, he originated and carried through several 
measures, which proved in practice to be salutary, 
and have become a permanent portion of the legisla- 
tion of the State." 

As is well known, the members of the twelfth Con- 
gress were generally selected with particular refer- 
ence to the apprehended war with Great Britain. 
The prominent stand taken by Mr. Calhoun in the 
Legislature had drawn public attention to him, and 
the Republicans of his congressional district de- 
manded his selection as their representative. He ac- 
cordingly presented himself before the people for 
their suffrages, and in the fall of 1810 was elected 
by a triumphant majority over his opponent. 



CHAPTER III 

In the House of Representatives. — Support of Madison's Ad- 
ministration. — The Restrictive System. 

The first session of the twelfth Congress com- 
menced on the 4th day of November, 181 1, — the two 
Houses having been cahed together, by executive 
proclamation, in advance of the regular day fixed 
upon by law for the commencement of the session, 
on account of the threatening aspect of affairs. Mr. 
Calhoun took his seat in the House of Representa- 
tives at the opening of the session. He was still a 
young man, being only in his thirtieth year, but he 
was not entirely unknown even among the many dis- 
tinguished members of the House. His talents and 
the zeal and ability which he had often manifested in 
defending the administration, and advocating de- 
cisive measures of resistance in opposition to the 
grasping policy of Great Britain, induced his ap- 
pointment by the then Si)eaker, Henry Clay, to the 
second place on the Committee of h^oreign Affairs. 
The chairman of the committee was Peter B. Porter, 
of New York. 

Mr. Calhoun's debut as a speaker was made on the 

19th of December, 181 1, during the debate on the 

resolutions reported from the committee oi which he 

was a member, in the month of November previous, 

authorizing immediate and active ])reparations for 

war. Able speeches in behalf of the resolutions had 

26 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 2/ 

already been delivered by Mr. Porter and Mr. 
Grundy, and it devolved on Mr. Calhoun to reply to 
the tirade of abuse and invective which the eloquent 
and versatile John Randolph had poured out on the 
policy shadowed forth in the resolutions. 

Among his associates in the House of Represen- 
tatives were many of the ablest men in the nation, 
who had either already become distinguished, or 
were advancing with rapid strides on the road to 
greatness. '' In all the Congresses with which I have 
had any acquaintance since my entry into the service 
of the federal government," said Mr. Clay, — '' in 
none, in my opinion, has been assembled such a 
galaxy of eminent and able men as were those Con- 
gresses which declared the war, and which imme- 
diately followed the peace." * First and foremost 
among them was the Speaker himself — Henry Clay, 
of Kentucky — the eloquent and impassioned orator; 
and beside him there were James Fisk of Vermont, 
the honest and independent ; Peter B. Porter, of New 
York, the chivalrous and high-minded ; John Ran- 
dolph, the talented and eccentric; Langdon Cheves 
and William Lowndes, the eminent and able col- 
leagues of Mr. Calhoun; Felix Grundy, of Ten- 
nessee, the skilful debater; Nathaniel Macon, the 
independent and fearless, but often impracticable 
politician; Josiah Quincy, of Massachusetts, the ac- 
complished but vindictive partisan ; and Timothy 
Pitkin, of Connecticut, the industrious and consci- 
entious. 

The maiden effort of Mr. Calhoun was not mere- 

* Remarks of Mr. Clay in the U. S. Senate, April i, 1850. 



2 8 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

ly well received. Expressions of approbation were 
heard on every side, and it was as generally com- 
mended for its ability and eloquence, as for the 
patriotism of its sentiments. In allusion to this 
speech, and to the arguments offered in reply to Mr. 
Randolph, the experienced editor of the Richmond 
Enquirer, Thomas Ritchie, with much justice re- 
marked : " Mr. Calhoun is clear and precise in his 
reasoning, marching up directly to the object of his 
attack, and felling down the errors of his opponent 
with the club of Hercules; not eloquent in his tropes 
and figures, but, like Fox, in the moral elevation of 
his sentiments; free from personality, yet full of 
those fine touches of indignation, which are the se- 
verest cut to a man of feeling. His speech, like a fine 
drawing, abounds in those lights and shades which 
set off each other: the cause of his country is lobed 
in light, while her opponents are wrapped in dark- 
ness. It were a contracted wish that Mr. Calhoun 
were a Virginian ; though, after the quota she has 
furnished with opposition talent, such a wish might 
be forgiven us. We beg leave to participate, as 
Americans and friends of our country, in the honors 
of South Carolina. We hail this young Carolinian 
as one of the master-spirits who stamp their names 
upon the age in which they live." 

Having made one successful effort, Mr. Calhoun 
did not sit down in inglorious ease to repose on the 
laurels he had gained, but with increased ardor and 
eagerness pressed forAvard in the race. 

Republican principles were firmly rooted in the 
mind of Mr. Calhoun, — too firmlv for him to be 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 29 

swerved from maintaining them, as he thought, in 
their pristine vigor and purity, by any considerations 
of mere party expediency. Nature never designed 
him for a partisan. He professed to belong to the 
Repubhcan party, and supported its measures, where 
he did not regard them as conflicting with its prin- 
ciples, in all honesty and faith. 

At an early period in his first session he acquired a 
highly honorable reputation for his fearless and inde- 
pendent conduct; and this he never lost even amid 
the many trying scenes of his subsequent life. 

To the administration of Mr. Madison he in the 
main yielded a cordial and hearty support, not be- 
cause he was attracted or awed by the influence of 
power, or seduced by the blandishments of executive 
favqr and patronage, but simply for the reason that 
all i ;s more prominent measures accorded with his 
own convictions and opinions with respect to the 
true policy of the country. Encouraged by the ani- 
mating eloquence of Mr. Calhoun, — of Mr. Clay, 
Mr. Porter, and Mr. Grundy, — a bolder and more 
defiant tone was assumed by the Republican mem- 
bers of Congress at the session of 1811-12. Bills 
providing for the enlistment of twenty thousand men 
in the regular army ; for repairing and equipping the 
frigates in ordinary and building new vessels ; 
authorizing the President to accept the services of 
fifty thousand volunteers ; and requiring the execu- 
tives of the several States and territories to hold 
their respective quotas of one hundred thousand men 
fully organized, armed and equipped, in readiness to 
march at a moment's warning, were duly passed 



30 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

with the approbation and vote of Mr. Calhoun ; and 
in June, 1812, with the whole delegation from South 
Carolina, he supported the declaration of war. 

In regard to the non-importation and embargo 
acts, or what is generally known as the restrictive 
system, Mr. Calhoun differed from the administra- 
tion and from a great majority of his political 
friends. He opposed with great earnestness the 
continuance of the system, and in a speech distin- 
guished by all the traits peculiar to his style of ora- 
tory, set forth the grounds of his opposition with 
great clearness and cogency. 



CHAPTER IV 

Results of the War. — United States Bank. — Currency. 

So well pleased were the constituents of Mr. Cal- 
houn with the manner in which he had discharged 
his duties as a member of Congress, during that im- 
portant juncture in the affairs of the national gov- 
ernment, the main incidents of which have been de- 
tailed, that he was returned without opposition, in 
the fall of 1812, and again in 1814, to the thirteenth 
and fourteenth Congresses. 

Until the close of the war he remained the firm and 
steadfast advocate of decisive measures, yet when a 
favorable peace had been concluded he hailed it as 
the harbinger of good to the country, and especially 
as it was the signal of her release from the thraldom 
of foreign influence. 

Mr. Calhoun was prominent in discussions of the 
final treaty with Great Britain, but his influence was 
chiefly marked in financial matters. Prominent 
among the unfortunate results of the war of 181 2, 
was the prostration of public and private credit. 
When war was declared, business was generally de- 
pressed, and it did not revive again till the conclu- 
sion of the treaty of peace. The contest was em- 
phatically one of self-defence on the part of the 
United States, — the very existence of the govern- 
ment was jeoparded, — and when she came out of the 

3^ 



32 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

struggle, she had saved Httle more than her nation- 
ahty and her honor. 

Soon after the actual declaration of war, the banks 
suspended specie payments, and immense losses were 
sustained by the government and by private indi- 
viduals, — those of the former amounting, as has been 
estimated, to forty-six millions of dollars.* Loans 
for carrying on the war were made with great diffi- 
culty, and often at most ruinous rates. As the cur- 
rency depreciated, the exchanges became deranged, 
and the prices of property rose and fell without any 
seeming regard for the laws which usually govern 
them. There was no financial barometer to indicate 
the changes that would take place. The nominal 
value of to-day might be increased or reduced from 
twenty-five to thirty per cent, to-morrow, without 
any ostensible cause. A want of steadiness prevailed 
everywhere ; the stagnation of business was general ; 
commerce was completely disordered; and hopeless 
and irremediable bankruptcy was apprehended. 

When peace was declared, the actual resources of 
the country were found to be far more abundant and 
more promising than had been anticipated. Many of 
the most eminent financiers, forming their opinions 
upon the fa\'orable effect produced, as was alleged, 
by the incorporation of a national bank in 1791, 
upon the disordered commerce and finances of the 
country at that period, desired to have a similar in- 
stitution established, for the purpose of correcting 
the evils flowing from the war of 18 12, in the same 

* Report of Mr. McDuffie on the United States Bank (House 
of Representatives), April 13, 1830. 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 33 

manner as those were corrected which grew out of 
the war of the Revohition. 

Ah the efforts to procure a renewal of the charter 
of the old bank having failed, however, they rested 
undisturbed until the session of 18 13-14, when a pe- 
tition was presented in the House of Representatives 
from the city of New York, praying for the incorpo- 
ration of a national bank, with a capital of thirty 
millions of dollars. The memorial was referred to 
the committee of ways and means who, in January, 
18 14, reported adversely to the prayer of the petition. 
The subjects of banking and the currency in general 
had attracted the attention of Mr. Calhoun to a con- 
siderable degree, but they were yet comparatively 
new to him. At this time he was favorably inclined 
toward a national bank, and on the 4th of February 
following, he offered a resolution instructing the 
committee of ways and means to inquire into the ex- 
pediency of establishing a bank in the District of 
Columbia, to avoid the alleged unconstitutionality of 
Federal action within State limits. 

The measure in various forms was debated for 
nearly a year. At the following session of Congress, 
commencing in December, 18 15, the President rec- 
ommended, in his annual message, that a uniform 
national currency should in some way be provided, 
and the Secretary of the Treasury repeated his sug- 
gestions, in a somewhat modified form, in regard to 
a national bank. That portion of the President's 
message having reference to a uniform national cur- 
rencv, was referred to a select committee of which 
Mr. Calhoun was made chairman. 

A. B., VOL. VI. —3 



34 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

On the 8th of January, 1816, Mr. Calhoun made 
an able and elaborate report from the committee on 
the currency, accompanied with a bill for the incor- 
poration of a national bank, as '' the most certain 
means of restoring to the nation a specie currency." 
This bill, with some few modifications, in March, 
1 8 16, became a law, and was known as the bank 
charter of 1816. 



CHAPTER V 

Consistency of Mr. Calhoun. — Resolution of 1816. — Direct Tax. 
— Tariff Act. — Military Academy. — Compensation Act. 

Few among modern statesmen have maintained a 
higher character for consistency than Mr. Calhoun. 
As has been remarked, he set aside the question of 
the constitutionaHty of a national bank, when the 
subject was first presented to him, and advocated 
the establishment of such an institution, in order to 
put an end to the suspension of specie payments, and 
to restore to the people the national currency — that 
of gold and silver — alone recognized by the constitu- 
tion, of which they had been for years deprived. He 
never lost sight of this great principle in regard to 
the constitutional currency, and in furtherance of it, 
earnestly supported, and voted for, the resolution of 
18 1 6, which provided that specie, or the notes of 
banks paying specie, should alone be received in pay- 
ment of government dues. This was the first step 
taken toward the entire separation of the general 
government from the banking system, — a measure 
which he lived to see accomplished, and, in no small 
degree, through his own disinterested and untiring 
efforts. 

Two other most important questions, intimately 
connected with each other, and with the finances of 
the country, were agitated at the session of 1815-16. 

35 



36 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

At an early day in the session, I\Ir. Lowndes, as the 
chairman of the committee of ways and means, re- 
ported a series of resolutions, providing for the con- 
tinuance, for a limited period, of the direct tax wdiich 
had been imposed on account of the exigencies of the 
war, and contemplating the establishment of a new 
tariff of duties. The direct tax was ordered to be 
continued by a vote of the House, Mr. Calhoun vot- 
ing with the majority. In regard to a new tariff 
there was, perhaps, more diversity of opinion as to 
minor details, but not so much as to the general 
principle. In March, 1816, tlie tariff act of that 
year was reported from the committee of ways and 
means, and received the support of Air. Calhoun. 
Prol)ably no one act of his life has been more severely 
criticised and censured than his connection with the 
tariff of 1816. 

His speech on the ([uestion was an unpremeditated 
effort, made on the spur of the occasion, upon the 
particular and urgent request of his friend Mr. Ing- 
ham, of Pennsylvania. The tariff bill was then un- 
der discussion, and the House had fallen into con- 
fusion. Mr. Calhoun was not a frequent speaker, 
but was always listened to with great deference and 
respect. He was therefore entreated to make some 
remarks, that order and tranquillity might be re- 
stored. He had been engaged in writing at his desk, 
and had made no preparation for the debate. More- 
over, his time and attention had been so completely 
taken up with his appropriate duties on the currency 
committee that he had reflected Init little on the 
merits of the tariff question. His remarks were, 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 3^ 

consequently, of a general character, and only de- 
signed to present the leading and more striking con- 
siderations in favor of the proposed law. 

It is undoubtedly true that this subject was a new 
one in so far as the protective policy was concerned 
— for previous tariff acts had been based on revenue 
principles — and if Mr. Calhoun erred in giving the 
measure his support, it must be attributed to that 
fact. But he would never himself admit, that there 
was anything inconsistent in his course on this occa- 
sion, as contrasted with his subsequent action. 

The political aspect of the tariff (juestion in 1816, 
was, indeed, very different from what it afterward 
became. The interests affected b}^ the law that year, 
and the circumstances attending its passage, were 
peculiar. From 1792 to 1805, the United States en- 
joyed a degree of commercial prosperity without par- 
allel in their history. The desolating wars in Eu- 
rope, and the conflict with Great Britain, put an end 
to this era of successful commerce, and the capital 
which had been so profitably employed was now 
driven into other channels. Manufacturing estab- 
lishments sprung up in the Northern and Eastern 
States, and under the influence of the non-intercourse 
policy they were highly prosperous. But when peace 
came, and our markets were again opened to foreign 
importations, it was not expected by anyone that they 
would be able to sustain themselves against the com- 
petition which they would be obliged to encounter. 
It was then urged, and with a great deal of plausi- 
bility, that the infant manufactures of the country, 
hitherto fostered and sustained by the existence of 



38 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

the war, were deserving of encouragement — not pro- 
tection, be it remembered — and that this could be 
afforded in no better way than by a tariff law en- 
acted for the purpose of raising the revenue needed 
for the support of the government. 

Mr. Calhoun never denied the power of Congress 
to impose duties for revenue, nor that the favorable 
effects of such imposition on tlie manufacturing in- 
terest might be properly taken into consideration in 
the enactment of tariff laws. Such were his opinions 
in 1816, and they were never changed at any period 
of his life. Coming from a State whose great staples 
were not all rccpiired for home consumption, but 
were driven in ])art to seek a foreign market, where 
the i)rices realized for the surplus governed the value 
of the whole, the position which he occupied on the 
tariff question, and which South Carolina held 
through him, was a most magnanimous one. 



CHAPTER VI 

Secretary of War. — Missouri Coinpromise. — Tariff Act of 1824. 
— Chosen Vice-President. — Reelected. 

With the 3rd day of March, 181 7, closed the 
period of Mr. Calhoun's service in the popular 
branch of Congress. He had been chosen for an- 
other term, but at the time of his reelection he did not 
anticipate the honors which Fortune had in store 
for him. 

Although he had been in Congress but for the 
short period of six years, his character was known 
and understood in every part of the country. His 
friends and admirers were numerous, and the new 
President entertained a high opinion of his talents 
and integrity. " Shortly before the meeting of Con- 
gress at the next session, [in December, 18 17,] he 
received an invitation from Mr. Monroe to take a 
place in his cabinet as Secretary of War. It was 
unsolicited and unexpected. 

'' Thus, after six years of distinguished services in 
Congress, during which Mr. Calhoun bore a promi- 
nent and efficient part in originating and supporting 
all the measures necessary to carry the country 
through one of the most trying and difficult periods 
of its existence, and had displayed throughout great 

39 



40 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

ability as a legislator and a speaker, we find him in 
a new scene, where his talents for business and ad- 
ministration for the first time are to be tried. 

To trace his acts through the period of more than 
seven years, during which ]\Ir. Calhoun remained in 
the war-office, would be tedious, and occupy more 
space than the object of this sketch would justify. 
The results, which, after all, are the best tests of the 
system and the efficiency of an administration, must 
be taken as a substitute. Suffice it, then, to sav, that 
when he came into office, he found it in a state of 
chaos, and left it. even in the opinion of opponents, 
in complete organizati(^n and order. 

In every branch of his duties as the presiding 
officer of the war department, Mr. Calhoun did the 
State good service; and the influence of his clear 
mind, his precision and love of order, his punctuality 
and integrity, was felt by all his subordinate officers 
and agents. The improvements which he introduced 
were not evanescent in their character, nor of tem- 
porary duration ; but they were designed to be per- 
manent, and the sequel proved them such in reality. 

From his position as a member of the cabinet, and 
the necessity of devoting his whole time to the per- 
formance of his official duties. Air. Calhoun had little 
leisure, as he had not much inclination, for partici- 
pating in the strifes and contests upon the various 
political questions agitated during the administration 
of Mr. Monroe. Though averse to the legislation by 
Congress on the subject of domestic slavery, he ap- 
proved of the course of Air. Monroe in regard to the 
Missouri compromise, viewing it strictly as a meas- 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 4 1 

lire of conciliation and peace ; but his opinions on the 
subject were afterwards changed. 

The tariff question was again presented under this 
administration. The act of 18 16 contemplated a re- 
duction of duties in 18 19. But Mr. Monroe, against 
the advice of Air. Calhoun, was finally induced to 
recommend additional encouragement, and at length 
the act of 1824, which established an average rate of 
duties of about thirty-eight per cent, was passed. 
This bill originated with the iron manufacturers of 
Pennsylvania and the other Middle States, who had 
recently held a convention at Pittsburg, but it was 
not countenanced or approved by the manufacturers 
of the Eastern and Southern States. 

From the peculiar circumstances attending the 
contest for the presidency in 1824, it was character- 
ized by as much asperity and virulence as was usual 
on such occasions, if not more. The course pursued 
by the Federal party in relation to the war of 18 12 
had completely alienated from them the affections 
of the people, and their organization was almost en- 
tirely lost during the " era of good feeling " intro- 
duced by Mr. Monroe. The party as a party split 
into fragments. Many still continued to adhere to 
their old principles, but the greater number hence- 
forth eschewed them, and adopted, in whole or in 
part, those of the Republican, afterwards known as 
the Democratic, school. 

Long before the expiration of Mr. Monroe's sec- 
ond term, it was quite e\'ident to every observing 
mind, that the Federalists, as such, were scarcely to 
be taken into account so far as the question of his 



42 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

successor was concerned. None but a Republican 
could be elected — that needed no demonstration. 
But among the Republicans themselves, there was a 
great diversity of opinion. Six different candidates 
were in the first place proposed by their respective 
friends, each one of whom claimed to belong to the 
Republican party. In the Northern and Eastern 
States John Quincy Adams was the favorite ; Henry 
Clay was the choice of Kentucky, Ohio, and Mis- 
souri ; Andrew Jackson was the most popular in the 
south-west, and the Southern States generally were 
divided between him, and William H. Crawford ; 
while the State of South Carolina presented the name 
of one of her most distinijuished sons, William 
Lowndes, and Pennsylvania that of another, Mr. 
Calhoun. 

The friends of Jackson, Adams, Clay, and Cal- 
houn, who constituted a majority of the Republican 
members of Congress, refused to go into a caucus, 
as is well known, whereupon the minority met and 
nominated Mr. Crawford. As between the other 
candidates, Mr. Calhoun preferred General Jackson; 
and as it was likely that a warm contest would spring 
up between their res])ective friends in Pennsylvania, 
the name of the former was finally withdrawn in 
compliance with his wishes. 

Mr. Calhoun being no longer a candidate for the 
presidential office, he was instantly taken up by the 
friends of General Jackson and Mr. Adams as their 
candidate for the vice-presidency. He also received 
the support of a portion of the friends of Mr. Clay, 
for the same office. The electors failing to agree 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 43 

upon a majority candidate, the election was thrown 
into the House of Representatives, and Mr. Adams 
was chosen President; while Mr. Calhoun was 
chosen vice-president by the college, — he receiving 
one hundred and eighty-two of the two hundred and 
sixtv-one electoral votes. 

On the 4th day of March, 1825, Mr. Calhoun took 
his seat in the Senate of the United States as its pre- 
siding officer. He left the war department, not as he 
found it, in confusion and disorder, but in every 
branch regularity and order had been restored or 
introduced. 

Mr. Calhoun filled the duties of his new office so 
well that he was reelected vice-president in 1828, as 
the Republican candidate on the same ticket with 
General Jackson. 



CHAPTER VII 

Xullification. — The Protective System. — Southern Opposition. 
— Srate Interposition. — Election of General Jackson. — Dis- 
sohnion of the Cabinet. — Convention in South Carolina. — 
State Rights. — Calhoun Elected Senator. 

We now approach the most inip>^rtant and event- 
fnl period in the lite and history of Mr. Calhoun — 
the period of Xullitication — in which the great hattle 
between State-rigfhts and the Ct^isolidation doctrines 
of the Federal party was ftmc^ht on the tloor of 
Conoress. 

The Xullification controversy, as it has been 
termed, grew out of the system of high protective 
duties long contended for hy the manufacturing in- 
terest and the friends of the American system, and 
finally established by the act of 1828. The act of 
18 1 6, which Mr. Calhoun had supported, went be- 
yond the true revenue limit, but so long as the policy 
was merely to foster and build up d(^mestic manu- 
factures, and while the public debt remained unpaid. 
Mr. Calhoun, and others who entertained similar 
views, were content not to insist upon a reduction of 
the duties to the revenue standard. The debt must 
be provided for, and this, it was probable, would 
absorb the surplus of revenue for a long time to 
come. 

44 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 45 

In 1824, the protectionists procured the passage 
of the act of that year increasing the profits of cer- 
tain branches of manufactures already estabhshed. 
and offering great inducements for the estabhshment 
of others. Three years later — at the session of 
1826-7 — ■' the woollens bill," designed almost exclu- 
sively for the benefit of the manufacturers, was 
brought before Congress. Public attention was now 
fully aroused to the proceedings of the manufactur- 
ers, and various interests appeared in the field, each 
contending for a share of the benefits to be derived 
from a high protective tariff. The doctrine of tem- 
porary protection, partially forgotten in 1824, was 
now to be entirely abandoned, and favoritism sub- 
stituted for encouragement. The manufacturers of 
the Eastern States, the iron manufacturers in Penn- 
sylvania and Xew Jersey, and the producers of wool 
and hemp in the Northern and Western States gen- 
erall}', were all earnestly enlisted in favor of a high 
tariff, but their interests were so often found to be 
conflicting, that harmony of action could not be 
secured. 

After a long struggle the act of 1828 was passed 
by the votes of nearly all the friends of a high pro- 
tective system in Congress. This bill was fitly 
termed by one of its authors '* a great error," and by 
a leading advocate of protection for the sake of pro- 
tection, " a bill of abominations." It imposed a tariff 
of duties averaging nearly fifty per cent, on the im- 
ports, and considerations of revenue had very little 
to do with the manner in which it was formed, or 
with its passage. 



46 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

Only three representatives from the Southern 
States, with the exception of the whole delegation 
from Kentucky, who either supported the xVmerican 
System of ]\lr. Clay or were influenced by the protec- 
tion given to hemp, voted for the act of 1828. Its 
passage elicited a general expression of indignation 
in the Southern States, and most of their legislatures 
adopted strong resolutions condemning it in unquali- 
fied terms as being unjust, oppressive, and uncon- 
stitutional. 

Mr. Calhoun was now regarded with almost filial 
affection and reverence by the citizens of his native 
State, and on his return home at the close of the 
session, he was visited by a number of leading and 
influential men, and the question w^as repeatedly pro- 
pounded to him — what must be done? His reply 
was, that they must not hazard the election of Gen- 
eral Jackson, upon whom he relied to counteract the 
dangerous tendencies of the times, and it was better 
to wait and see whether his administration w^ould 
not reduce the duties to the revenue standard before 
the public debt was paid, or, at least, take the neces- 
sary steps to secure that reduction whenever it should 
be finally discharged. But if they were disappointed, 
then he advised that the unconstitutional laws should 
be resisted, and that a resort should be had to State 
interposition, or, in other words, nullification. 

Resistance had previously been recommended, at a 
public meeting of the citizens of Colleton district 
held in June, 1828, and at other gatherings of the 
people similar sentiments were freely avow^ed. Mr. 
Calhoun was firmly of the opinion that nullification 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 47 

was the rightful remedy, but his advice of forbear- 
ance was followed by his friends. He consented, 
however, to give expression to his views, and at the 
request of a member of the legislature, prepared a 
paper exposing the objectionable features of the act 
of 1828 and the injurious effects which must result 
from it, and pointing out the remedy for the evil. 
Five thousand copies of this paper were ordered to be 
printed by the legislature, which met in December, 
1828, under the title of '' The South Carolina Expo- 
sition and Protest on the subject of the Tariff." 
The legislature then contented itself wath passing a 
resolution declaring the tariff acts of Congress for 
the protection of domestic manufactures unconstitu- 
tional and that the}^ ought to be resisted, and invit- 
ing other States to cooperate with South Carohna in 
measures of resistance. By this legislature, also, 
electors were chosen who gave the vote of the State 
to General Jackson and Mr. Calhoun. 

Time wore on. General Jackson was inaugurated, 
but no relief came. The influence of the tariff* 
friends of the administration was controlling, and 
the President expressed the opinion that no satisfac- 
tory adjustment of the tariff could be made, which 
w^ould not leave a large annual surplus beyond what 
was required by the government for its current ser- 
vice, wherefore he recommended the adoption of 
some plan for its distribution or apportionment 
among the States, to be expended on objects of in- 
ternal improvement.* This recommendation ap- 
peared to Mr. Calhoun to be an aggravation of the 

* Annual Messages of 1829 and 1830. 



43 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

original cause of complaint, and he could see nothing 
in the scheme of distribution but a premium and an 
inducement to the friends of a high protective tariff 
to persist in maintaining the system which they had 
fastened upon the country. He viewed it as a bribe 
to the States, to secure their support of the system 
as the fixed and settled policy of the national govern- 
ment. 

Meanwhile the friendly relations previously exist- 
ing between General Jackson and Mr. Calhoun had 
been interrupted. Mr. Van Buren \^•as secretary of 
State, and both he and Mr. Calhoun were looked 
upon as candidates for the succession. Their re- 
spective friends in the cal)inet became discontented 
with each other; the bad feelings wliich had been 
engendered were increased by dithculties between 
their famihes and by the absence of harmony of 
opinion in regard to the tariff, and finally ended in 
the resignation of all the secretaries and the attorney- 
general, and the construction of an entire new cabi- 
net. This took place in the Spring of 1831, and from 
that time Mr. "Calhoun was regarded as one of the 
opposers of the administration. He and General 
Jackson were probably too much alike in disposition 
long to agree cordially together, and the feelings of 
animosity cherished by the latter were much height- 
ened by the disclosure to him, about this time, of the 
fact that Mr. Calhoun, as a member of Mr. Monroe's 
cabinet, had advised that he should be punished or 
rei)rimanded for his course during the Seminole 
campaign, in the execution of Arbuthnot and Am- 
brister. Each possessed an iron will, and each had 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 49 

inherited many of the traits pecuhar to their common 
ancestry. 

It was impossible that the pubhc action of Mr. 
Calhoun should not be affected by this change in his 
personal and political relations, and it may some- 
times have so far influenced him as to bias his views 
and feelings in many particulars. 

In the meantime, Mr. Calhoun had issued a public 
address in South Carolina, and had wTitten a letter 
to the governor of that State developing at length 
his views on the right of a State to defend her re- 
served powers against the encroachments of the Gen- 
eral Government. 

Before proceeding further, let us see what w^as in 
truth the position of Mr. Calhoun as to the relations 
between the States and the Union, for upon no sub- 
ject was he more frequently misrepresented. He 
held, then, i. that the Federal constitution w^as a 
compact adopted and ratified by and between the 
States, in their sovereign capacities as States ; 2. that 
the general government contemplated and authorized 
by this constitution was the mere agent of the States 
in the execution of certain delegated powers, in re- 
gard to the extent of which the States themselves 
were the final judges; and 3. that when the reserved j 
powers were infringed by the general government, / 
or the delegated powers abused, its principals, thef 
States, possessed the right of State interposition or^ 
nullification, otherwise there would be no remedy fori 
any usurpation of the reserved or abuse of the dele-; 
gated powers. 

These were the great leading features of Mr. Cal- 

A. B., VOL. VI. — 4 \ 



I 

i 

i 



50 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

houn's creed. His views were, of course, diametri- 
cally opposed to the consolidation doctrines of the 
Federal school of politicians ; and with respect to the 
minor questions collateral to, or growing out of, 
these first principles, the difference was as broad and 
as well-defined. Among Republicans, however, the 
State Rights doctrines were generally popular, dur- 
ing the nullification controversy, and they afterwards 
became even more so, in consequence of the able and 
convincing expositions of Mr. Calhoun. But the 
great majority of his old political friends, out of the 
State of South Carolina, differed with him as to 
the application of those doctrines. He insisted that 
the power delegated to Congress l)y the Constitution, 
of laying taxes, duties, imposts and excises, was lim- 
ited, by its terms, to the following purposes — the 
payment of the debts and pro\i(ling for the defence 
and general welfare of the United States: * he ad- 
mitted the i)ower of Congress to impose duties for 
revenue, but denied it for protection. 

On the other side, it was said that the right to 
im])ose duties for protection existed somewhere; that 
the Federal constitution expressly took away from 
the States the power to lay imposts or duties on im- 
ports or exports ; f and that, as this power could not 
be utterly extinct, it must be lodged in the general 
government, i To this Mr. Calhoun replied, that 
the idea of protecting the domestic interests of the 
country was not contemplated by the framers of the 

* Article i. Section 8. 

t Ibid, Section lo. 

t Annual Message of President Jackson, 1830. 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 5 1 

Constitution; that every tariff prior to 1816 was a 
revenue tariff; and that the cession of the pubHc 
lands by the States to the general government was 
made to enable it to pay the public debt, and that this 
cession would have been unnecessary for such a pur- 
pose, if a high protective tariff was thought to be 
constitutional. All the opponents of Mr. Calhoun in 
the Republican party did not maintain that a tariff, 
with protection as its primary feature, was constitu- 
tional. This doctrine was held by the Northern Fed- 
eralists, and by only a small portion of the friends of 
the administration of General Jackson. The Re- 
publicans, generally, agreed that revenue should be 
the controlling consideration ; but many, and perhaps 
all who were not nullifiers, thought that it was 
proper, in the imposition of duties, to discriminate 
for purposes of protection. This, too, Mr. Calhoun 
]>egarded as an error, for discrimination for protec- 
tion was neither more nor less than protection itself 
— not so glaring, not so unjust, it might be — yet in- 
volving the same identical principle. 

While the State w^as thus agitated with the throes 
of incipient revolution, a ray of hope shot athwart 
the beclouded sky. The law of 1828 was far more 
productive of revenue than had been anticipated by 
its framers ; the pubMc debt was being rapidly extin- 
guished ; and the treasury was seriously threatened 
with plethora. The disposition of the constantly ac- 
cumulating surplus of revenue was of the first im- 
portance, and it was generally conceded by states- 
men of all parties that a reduction of duties ought 
forthwith to be made. The surplus might have been 



52 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

absorbed by a vast increase of the expenditures, but 
this no party would tolerate. In his annual message, 
therefore, in December, 1831, President Jackson an- 
nounced that the public debt would soon be entirely 
discharged, and recommended the reduction of the 
duties in order to relieve the people from unnecessary 
taxation. 

So apparent was the necessity for a retrograde 
movement, that all appeared to concur in it, and at 
this session of Congress the act of 1832 was passed. 
This bill was declared tu be the ultimatum of the 
friends of protection, and was intended by the imme- 
diate friends of the administration, and l)y the oppo- 
sition headed by Mr. Clay, as a final adjustment of 
the duties. The reduction made by the bill, however, 
was rather imaginary than real. The duties ui)()n 
the protected articles were augmented, while those 
on the unprotected articles alone were diminished. 

Immediately after the passage of the bill, the rep- 
resentatives from the State of South Carolina who 
thought with Mr. Calhoun that nullification was the 
rightful remedy, issued an address to the people of 
the State, advising them that the protecting system 
might now l)e regarded as the settled policy of the 
country, and that all hope of relief from Congress 
was irrecoverably gone. 

The people of South Carolina were not unanimous 
in sustaining the positions assumed by Mr. Calhoun. 
A small party calling themselves Unionists, embrac- 
ing several po])ular and infhiential men, among 
whom were ex-Governor Manning, Judge Smith, 
Colonel Drayton, Mr. Pettigru, and Mr. Poinsett, 
had been formed, and, aided by the whole weight of 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 53 

the influence and patronage of the Federal executive, 
they entered with zeal into the canvass preceding the 
annual election. A fierce and violent contest ensued, 
which terminated in the choice of a large majority of 
nullifiers to the State legislature. Mr. Calhoun was 
not, in the meanwhile, an idle or indifferent specta- 
tor. He did not withhold his counsel or advice, and 
no one individual contributed more powerfully than 
he to this result. 

It had all along been conceded by the Unionists 
that the State Rights party were in the ascendant, 
and the great struggle at the election was to prevent 
the latter from obtaining the constitutional majority 
in the legislature. Without a majority of two-thirds 
a convention could not be called, and this was the 
only mode in which, as the nullifiers admitted, the 
people of the State could declare an act of the United 
States unconstitutional and void. The State Rights 
party, however, returned more than the constitu- 
tional number to both houses. The legislature con- 
vened on the 22d of October, 1832, and the first 
business of the session was the passage of a law 
authorizing the election of delegates to a State Con- 
vention, to meet at Columbia on the 19th day of 
November following. 

Delegates were accordingly chosen, and the Con- 
vention was held at the appointed time. On the 24th 
instant they adopted the celebrated Ordinance of 
Nullification, declaring the acts of 1828 and 1832 
absolutely null and void, within the State of South 
Carolina; providing that no appeal should be per- 
mitted to the Supreme Court of the United States 
upon any question concerning the validity of the 



54 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

ordinance, or of the laws that might be passed to 
give effect thereto ; prohibiting the authorities of the 
State, or of the general government, from enforcing 
the payment of duties within the State, from and 
after the ist day of February, 1833; ^^^^ declaring 
that any attempt to enforce the revenue laws, other- 
wise than through the civil tribunals, would be in- 
consistent with the longer continuance of South 
Carolina in the Union, and the people of the State 
would then proceed fortliwitli to the formation of 
aJi independent government.'^ This ordinance was 
accompanied by two addresses — one to the people of 
South Carolina, and the other to the people of 
the other States in the Union — setting forth the mo- 
tives which had prompted the adojition of the ordi- 
nance, and the principles upon which it was foimded. 
These proceedings were had with the knowledge, and 
in part under the advice, of Mr. Calhoun ; and, conse- 
quently, they met with his approl^ation. The Con- 
vention then adjourned to meet again in March, after 
the adjournment of Congress. 

The South Carolina legislature being still in ses- 
sion, the necessary laws to give effect to the ordi- 
nance were passed ; and as it had been threatened by 
the Unionists that the President would direct the 
collection of the revenue by force of arms, '' the State 
placed itself in an attitude of military preparation for 
the defence of its position ; organized and armed its 
own physical force ; and succeeded in arousing so 
determined and excited a state of feeling in its citi- 
zens, that we think there can be no doubt that it 

* Niles' Register, vol. xliii. p. 27";/. 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 55 

would have maintained its position to the last ex- 
tremity, — a position, manifestly, exceedingly difficult 
to be overcome, if thus maintained. 

The proceedings in South Carolina were followed 
by the proclamation of the President declaring the 
ordinance of the State Convention subversive of 
the Federal constitution, and his intention to enforce 
the laws at whatever hazard, and warning the people 
of the State against obedience to the ordinance as 
involving the crime of treason against the United 
States. Meanwhile, General Hayne, the able and 
accomplished senator in Congress from South Caro- 
lina, had been elected governor of the State by the 
legislature and had entered upon the duties of his 
office; and in reply to the President's proclamation, 
he issued a counter proclamation defending the posi- 
tion assumed by the State, and calling out twelve 
thousand volunteers. 

By the election of General Hayne as governor, a 
vacancy had been produced in the representation of 
the State in Congress. It was important at this par- 
ticular juncture that the State should be represented 
in the Federal councils by the ablest of her sons, and 
all eyes were now instinctively turned toward Mr. 
Calhoun. Prior to the adjournment of the legisla- 
ture, therefore, in December, 1832, he was chosen as 
the successor of Mr. Hayne in the senate of the 
United States. Mr. Calhoun was prompt to regard 
the call of his native State; her claims were para- 
mount ; he readily consented to become her champion 
and defender, resigned his position as vice-president, 
and entered the floor of the Senate. 



CHAPTER VIII 

In the Senate. — Special Message of the President. — Mr. Cal- 
houn's Resolution. — The Force Bill. — Argument of Mr. 
Webster. — Reply of Mr. Calhoun. — Passage of the Com- 
promise Act. 

« 

The Senate of the Union was tlie theatre of Air. 
Calhoun's proudest triumphs — the great field of his 
usefulness and fame. 

It was queried hy many whether he would not 
be apprehended, and S(Mue stoutly asserted that he 
would be arrested ere he reached Washincfton. He 
was called the head and front of the nullification 
cause, but he esteemed it an honor to be thus desig- 
nated. 1 Ic was stigmatized an arch-traitor and de- 
nounced as a disunionist, yet he pursued his way un- 
moved by clamor or denunciation. It was said that 
he aimed to overthrow the Constitution, and that his 
presence at the capitol would endanger the peace and 
security of the Union. But he had no such end in 
view. His errand was one of peace. He loved the 
Union too well lightly to peril it. He looked upon 
the State governments as the pillars, to use the lan- 
guage of a distinguished statesman of New York,* 
" which support the magnificent dome of our national 
government," and if but one of them should be re- 
moved, the strength and beauty of the edifice reared 

* Dc Witt Clinton. 
56 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 5/ 

above them would be gone forever. He desired, 
therefore, to make one more last effort for redress, 
and he could not but feel assured, that if passions 
and prejudices did not overrule the judgments of 
men, it would prove successful. 

Mr. Calhoun took his seat in the Senate shortly 
after the commencement of the session in December, 
1832. Many affected to doubt, for those who really 
understood his position could not have cjuestioned 
his readiness to abide by the Constitution, whether 
he would take the oath of office. The floor of the 
senate-chamber and the galleries were thronged with 
spectators. They saw him take the oath with a 
solemnity and dignity appropriate to the occasion, 
and then calmlv seat himself on the riHit of the 
chair, among his old political friends, nearly all of 
whom were now arrayed against him. 

In a few days after he entered the Senate, he in- 
troduced a resolution, calling upon the president to 
lay before that body the ordinance of South Carolina, 
and other documents connected with it, which had 
been transmitted to him by the executive of that 
State. Before any action was had upon the resolu- 
tion, the special message of the president, dated the 
1 6th January, 1833, was sent in. This message took 
strong ground against the position of South Caro- 
lina, and Mr. Calhoun felt that the occasion required 
something in the nature of a reply from him. He 
had been out of the habit of public speaking, yet he 
could not shrink from his duty. He arose, therefore, 
after the reading of the message had been concluded, 
and delivered an eloquent and effective speech in de- 



58 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

fence of his State, which he conckided by declaring, 
most emphatically, that if the national government 
should be brought back to the principles of 1798, he 
would be the last to abandon it. 

The message of the ])resident and the accompany- 
ing documents were referred to the committee on the 
judiciary, of which Mr. Grundy was chairman. Mr. 
\\'ebster was also a member (^f the committee, and 
he had publicly avowed his intention to use his ut- 
most efforts to put down the nullification doctrines ot 
South Carolina. A bill, popularly known as the 
Force Bill, was soon after reported by this com- 
mittee, which extended the jurisdiction of the courts 
of the United States in cases arising under the 
revenue laws, and clothing the president with addi- 
tional powers. The object of this bill, which was not 
disguised, was to enable the Federal executive to en- 
force the collection of the revenue in South Carolina. 
Mr. Calhoun desired that the important constitution- 
al question at issue should undergo a preliminary dis- 
cussion, before the bill was called up, and with the 
view of provoking debate, he introduced the follorw- 
ing resolutions, aftirmatory of the great principles 
for which he and his '' beloved and virtuous State " 
were contending : — 

" Resolved, That the people of the several states composing 
these United States are united as parties to a constitutional 
compact, to which the people of each state acceded as a separate 
and sovereign community, each binding itself, by its own par- 
ticular ratification ; and that the Union, of which the said com- 
pact is the bond, is a union bctzvccu the states ratifying the 



sam.e. 



Resolved, That the people of the several states, thus united 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 59 

by a constitutional compact, in forming that instrument, in 
creating a General Government to carry into effect the objects 
for which it was formed delegated to that government, for that 
purpose, certain definite powers to be exercised jointly, reserv- 
ing, at the same time, each state to itself, the residuary mass 
of powers, to be exercised by its own separate government ; 
and that, whenever the General Government assumes the exer- 
cise of powers not delegated by the compact, its acts are un- 
authorized, void, and of no effect ; and that the said govern- 
ment is not made the final judge of the powers delegated to it, 
since that would make its discretion, and not the Constitution, 
the measure of its powers ; but that, as in all other cases of 
compact among sovereign parties, without any common judge, 
each has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of the infrac- 
tion as of the mode and measure of redress. 

" Resolved, That the assertions, that the people of these 
United States, taken collectively as individuals, are now, or 
ever have been, united on the principle of the social compact, 
and, as such, are now formed into one nation or people ; or that 
they have ever been so united in any one stage of their political 
existence ; or that the people of the several states comprising 
the Union have not, as members thereof, retained their 
sovereignty; or that the allegiance of their citizens has been 
transferred to the General Government ; or that they have 
parted with the right of punishing treason through their re- 
spective state governments ; or that they have not the right of 
judging, in the last resort, as to the extent of the powers re- 
served, and, of consequence, of those delegated, are not only 
without foundation in truth, but are contrary to the most cer- 
tain and plain historical facts, and the clearest deductions of 
reason ; and that all exercise of power on the part of the Gen- 
eral Government, or any of its departments, deriving authority 
from such erroneous assumptions, must of necessity be uncon- 
stitutional ; must tend directly and inevitably to subvert the 
sovereignty of the states, to destroy the federal character of the 
Union, and to rear on its ruins a consolidated government, 
without constitutional check or limitation, and which must 
necessarily terminate in the loss of liberty itself." 

These resolutions covered the whole ground in dis- 



60 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

piite, and It was but just that the principles involved 
should be settled before proceeding to the considera- 
tion of the bill ; for if South Carolina was right in 
her position, the passage of the bill would be a gross 
act of injustice. But in the progress of the contro- 
versy, many bad feelings had been aroused on both 
sides, and a disposition was manifested on the part 
of the supporters of the administration, to press mat- 
ters to a crisis at once. Under the influence of this 
prevailing disposition, the resolutions of Mr. Cal- 
houn were laid upon the table, and the bill taken up 
for discussion. 

The debate was ably conducted. Many of the Re- 
publican senators from the Southern States opposed 
the bill in effective speeches, and resisted its passage 
at every step. Not a single senator offered to take 
up the gauntlet thrown down by Mr. Calhoun in his 
resolutions, while the bill was pending before the 
Senate, although Mr. Webster, in particular, was 
well known to dift'er from him toto ca:lo. It had 
been the intention of the former to reply to Mr. Web- 
ster, but when it became known that he would not 
speak first, Mr. Calhoun himself took the floor in 
opposition to the Force Bill, and in defence of South 
Carolina. He also replied to the personal attacks 
which had been made upon him, and repelled, in elo- 
quent and indignant terms, the charge that he had 
been influenced by disappointed ambition. 

Mr. Calhoun spoke on the 15th of February, and 
three days afterward the l)ill was ordered to be en- 
grossed for a third reading, by a vote of thirty-two 
to eight. Those who voted in the negative were Mr. 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 6l 

Bibb of Kentucky, Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Miller of 
South Carolina, Mr. King and Mr. Moore of Ala- 
bama, Mr. Mangum of North Carolina, Mr. Troup 
of Georgia, and Mr. Tyler of Virginia. Mr. Clay, 
Mr. Benton, and several other senators, absented 
themselves, and did not vote on the question. The 
bill was pressed to a final vote on the 20th instant. 
All the senators opposed to it except Mr. Tyler hav- 
ing left the Senate chamber, it was passed by a vote 
of thirty-two to one (Mr. Tyler). 

In his speech on the Force Bill, Mr. Calhoun pur- 
posely avoided the discussion of the principles in- 
volved in his resolutions, except in general terms, be- 
cause he wished to deprive Mr. Webster of the ad- 
vantage of attacking his positions when he would be 
precluded from a reply. Mr. Webster followed Mr. 
Calhoun in the debate on the Force Bill ; and instead 
of confining himself to the merits of the question 
actually before the Senate, he went into an elaborate 
examination of the principles on which the govern- 
ment was formed, and taking the extreme Federal 
ground in support and defence of consolidation, at- 
tacked with much vehemence and ability the posi- 
tions laid down by Mr. Calhoun in his resolutions. 
The latter had anticipated this, and after the passage 
of the Force Bill, the Senate, at his request, assigned 
a day when he should be heard in defence of his 
resolutions. 

The question at issue was of the highest impor- 
tance. It was a contest between extremes — ultra 
Federalism and Consolidation on the one hand, and 
ultra State Rights on the other. Mr. Webster saw 



62 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

where the real point lay. He could not but admit 
that if the Constitution was a compact between the 
States, as the whole Republican party contended, 
nullification. State interposition and the right of 
secession followed as a matter of course. Mr. Web- 
ster, therefore, maintained that the Constitution was 
not only not a com]^act Ix^wecn the States, but that 
after its ratification it became the fundamental law, 
supreme in its authority to the extent of the dele- 
gated powers, binding the States and the whole 
American ])eople in the aggregate, and thus forming 
one indivisible nation. 

" Whether the Constitution be a compact between 
States in their sovereign capacities," he said, " is a 
question which must be mainly argued from what is 
contained in the instrument itself. We all ao-ree that 
it is an instrument which has been in some way 
clothed with pcnver. We all admit that it speaks 
with authority. The first question then is — What 
does it say of itself? What does it purport to be? 
Does it style itself a league, confederacy, or compact 
between sovereign States? It is to be remembered, 
that the Constitution began to speak only after its 
adoption. Lentil it was ratified by nine States, it was 
but a proposal, the mere draft of an instrument. It 
was like a deed drawn but not executed. The Con- 
vention had framed it ; sent it to Congress then sit- 
ting under the Confederation : Congress had trans- 
mitted it to the State Legislatures; and by the last, 
it was laid before the Conventions of the people in 
the several States. All this while it was inoperative 
paper. It had received no stamp of authority; it 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 63 

spoke no language. But when ratified by the people 
in their respective Conventions, then it had a voice 
and spoke authentically. Every word in it had then 
received the sanction of the popular will, and was to 
be received as the expression of that will. What the 
Constitution says of itself, therefore, is as conclusive 
as what it says on any other point. Does it call itself 
a ' compact ? ' Certainly not. It uses the word 
compact but once, and that is, when it declares that 
the States shall enter into no compact. Does it call 
itself a ' league,' a ' confederacy,' a ' subsisting treaty 
between the States ? ' Certainly not. There is not a 
particle of such language in all its pages. But it de- 
clares itself a Constitution. What is a Constitu- 
tion f Certainly not a league or confederacy, but a 
fundamental lazv. That fundamental regulation 
which determines the manner in which the public 
authority is to be executed, is what forms the Con- 
stitution of a State. Those primary rules which con- 
cern the body itself, and the very being of the politi- 
cal society, the form of government and the manner 
in which power is to be exercised — all, in a word, 
which form together the Constitution of a State — 
these are fundamental laws. This is the language of 
the public writers. But do we need to be informed in 
this country what a constitution is ? Is it not an idea 
perfectly familiar, definite and well settled ? We are 
at no loss to understand what is meant by the Con- 
stitution of one of the States — and the Constitution 
of the United States speaks of itself as being an in- 
strument of the same nature. It says, this Constitu- 
tion shall be the law of the land, anything in State 



64 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

Constitutions to the contrary notwithstanding'. And 
speaks of itself, too, in plain contradistinction from 
a confederation : for it says, that all debts contracted, 
and all engagements entered into by the United 
States, shall be as valid under this Constitution as 
under the Confederation. It does not say, as valid 
under this compact, or this league, or this confedera- 
tion, as under the former confederation, but as valid 
under this Constitution.'' 

Mr. Calhoun replied to Mr. Webster on the 26th 
of February, in a most masterly effort made in the 
presence of a large and attentive audience. All felt 
the influence of the mighty mind whose energies were 
now taxed to the utmost, and hundreds who could 
not or would not be cc^nvincecl by his reasoning, lis- 
tened with admiration and dehght to the torrent of 
argument that rolled in an incessant flow from his 
lips. He maintained that the Constitution was 
strictly a compact between sovereign bodies, and that 
each State as a party could declare the nature and 
extent of her obligations, in the same manner as in 
the analogous case of a treaty or alliance between 
two powers or governments. The Constitution was 
formed by a federal convention of the States, and 
ratilied by the States as States, through the inter- 
position of Conventions, for, obviously, the State 
legislatures had no power to bind their constituents 
on such a question : it was not submitted to the peo- 
ple in the aggregate, but each State voted upon it 
separately, in its sovereign ca])acity. 

The great principle for which Mr. Calhoun con- 
tended, was embraced in the first resolution, which. 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 65 

being admitted, the other resokitions were the ir- 
resistible inferences or conclusions. The first resolu- 
tion, said Mr. Calhoun, " contains three propositions. 
First, that the Constitution is a compact; second, 
that it was formed by the States, constituting distinct 
communities; and, lastly, that it is a subsisting and 
binding compact between the States. How do these 
three propositions now stand ? The first, I trust, has 
been satisfactorily established ; the second, the sena- 
tor has admitted, faintly, indeed, but still he has ad- 
mitted it to be true. This admission is something. 
It is so much gained by discussion. Three years ago 
even this was a contested point. But I cannot say 
that I thank him for the admission : we owe it to the 
force of truth. The fact that these States were de- 
clared to be free and independent States at the time 
of their independence ; that they were acknowledged 
to be so by Great Britain in the treaty which termi- 
nated the war of the Revolution, and secured their 
independence ; that they were recognized in the same 
character in the old articles of the Confederation ; 
and, finally, that the present Constitution was formed 
by a convention of the several States, afterw^ard sub- 
mitted to them for their ratification, and was ratified 
by them separately, each for itself, and each, by its 
own act, binding its citizens, formed a body of facts 
too clear to be denied and too strong to be resisted. 
" It now remains to consider the third and last 
proposition contained in the resolution — that it is a 
binding and a subsisting compact between the States. 
The senator was not explicit on this point. I under- 
stood him, however, as asserting that, though formed 
A. R., VOL. VI.— 5 



66 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

by the States, the Constitution was not binding be- 
tween the States as distinct communities, but be- 
tween the American people in the aggregate, who. in 
consequence of the adoption of the Constitution, ac- 
cording to the opinion of the senator, became one 
people, at least to the extent of the delegated powers. 
This would, indeed, be a great change. All acknowl- 
edge, that previous to the adoption of the Constitu- 
tion, the States constituted distinct and independent 
communities, in full possession of their sovereignty ; 
and, surely, if the adoption of the Constitution was 
intended to effect the great and imi)ortant change in 
their condition which the theory of the senator sup- 
poses, some evidence of it ought to be found in the 
instrument itself. It pn^fesses to be a careful and 
full enumeration of all the powers which the States 
delegated, and of every mtxlihcation of their political 
condition. The senator said that he looked to the 
Constitution in order to ascertain its real character; 
and, surely, he ought to look to the same instrument 
in order to ascertain what changes were, in fact, 
made in the political condition oi the States and the 
country. But with the exception of ' We, the people 
of the United States ' in the i)reamble, he has not 
pointed out a single indication in the Constitution of 
the great change which he conceives has been ef- 
fected in this respect. 

. . . . On this point there is a very important 
part of the Constitution entirely and strangely over- 
looked by the senator in this debate, as it is expressed 
in the first resolution, which furnishes the conclusive 
evidence, not only that the Constitution is a compact, 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 6/ 

but a subsisting compact, binding between the States. 
I allude to the seventh article, which provides that 
' the ratification of the convention of nine States shall 
be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution 
bctzvecii the States so ratifying the same.' Yes, be- 
twecn the States: these little words mean a volume 
— compacts, not laws, bind betzveen the States ; and it 
here binds, not between individuals, but between the 
States, — the States ratifying, — implying, as strong 
as language can make it, that the Constitution is 
what I have asserted it to be — a compact, ratified by 
the States, and a subsisting compact, binding the 
States ratifying it." 

Rarely has such intellectual championship been 
witnessed in the halls of Congress as on this memor- 
able occasion. It was a contest between giants. 
Never before had the great powers of Mr. Calhoun 
been made so clearly manifest ; and the superiority 
of his logical powers was admitted by many who had 
not hitherto been classed among his admirers. 

The eccentric John Randolph, then in feeble 
health, happened to be present during this debate. 
He sat near Mr. Calhoun when the latter was mak- 
ing his reply, but a hat standing on the seat before 
him, prevented him from seeing Mr. Webster. 
" Take away that hat," he exclaimed ; " I want to see 
Webster die, muscle by muscle." 

The Force Bill, nevertheless, passed the House of 
Representatives on the 28th of February, and became 
a law ; but in the meantime everything had remained 
quiet in South Carolina. The ist of February was 
the day appointed for the nullification ordinance to 



68 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

take effect, but about that time the leachng State 
Rights men held a meeting at Charleston, and 
adopted resolutions agreeing that no attempt should 
be made to execute the ordinance till Congress ad- 
journed and the State Convention reassembled.* In 
this manner a collision between the State and Na- 
tional authorities was avoided. The forts in the 
harbor of Charleston were strongly garrisoned under 
the orders of the President, but General Scott, the 
officer charged with the command in diis ([uarter, was 
cautious, forbearing, and discreet. Owing to his 
moderation and prudence, and tlie display of the 
same qualities by the prominent nullifiers and union- 
ists, not a drop of blood was shed. 

Meanwhile, in compliance with the clearly ex- 
pressed wish of the country, notwithstanding a ma- 
jority of the American people may have at that time 
disapproved of the stand taken by South Carolina, 
different measures for the reduction of the duties 
were brought before Congress. The project ]n-e- 
sented by the administration was thought by the 
friends of protection to contemplate too sudden a 
reduction. They became alarmed, and Mr. Clay as 
their leader prei)ared the well-known Compromise i 
Act, under the advice and with the approbation of 
Mr. Calhoun. The latter did n(U desire to see the 
manufacturers ruined, nor hastily to undo the bad 
legislation which had given rise to so many com- 
plaints. The Compromise Act was announced by its 
author and advocate, Mr. Clay, to be designed for a 
permanent tariff system which should quiet the pres- 

* Nilcs' Register, vol. xliii. p. 381. 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 69 

ent agitation and prevent a recurrence of similar 
evils in the future. The bill surrendered the protec- 
tive principle and established the ad valorem — two ^ 
favorite points with Mr. Calhoun. It also provided 
for a general reduction of the duties to the revenue 
standard. Mr. Calhoun was satisfied with this, as 
were all parties in Congress except the ultra friends 
of protection. The bill passed both Houses, there- 
fore, by large majorities, and received the signature 
of the President on the 2d day of March, 1833. 

Congress adjourned on the 3d instant, and Mr. 
Calhoun hastened his return home. Travelling night 
and day by the most rapid public conveyances, he 
succeeded in reaching Columbia in time to meet the 
Convention before they had taken any additional 
steps. Some of the more fiery and ardent members 
were disposed to complain of the Compromise Act 
as being only a half-way, temporizing measure; but 
when his explanations were made, all felt satisfied, 
and the Convention cordially approved of his course. 
The nullification ordinance was repealed, and the 
two parties in the State abandoned their organiza- 
tions, and mutually agreed to forget all their past 
differences — a pledge which, to their honor be it said, 
was faithfully observed. 

Thus terminated this important controversy, 
which for a time threatened the integrity of the 
Union. 



CHAPTER IX 

The United States Bank. — Reelected to the Senate. — AboHtion 
Excitement. — Admission of Michigan. — Government and 
the Banks. 

One of the most powerful reasons — and, perhaps, 
irrespective of personal feelings, the controlling one 
— that influenced Mr. Calhoun in taking a position 
adverse to the administration of General Jackson, 
was the favor at first shown toward the protective 
policy. 

But just at this time a new and exciting ques- 
tion was thrown into the sea of politics, now sub- 
siding from its troubled state to one of calm and 
repose, and again its waters were agitated with the 
fury of the tempest. In 1832, the bill to recharter 
the United States Bank was vetoed by President 
Jackson, and at the ensuing election he was again 
chosen the chief magistrate of the nation. This de- 
cision of the American people in his favor, as it was 
construed by himself and his friends, emboldened 
him to urge forward measures which he had proba- 
bly long had in contemplation ; and this he was the 
better able to do, in consequence of the adjustment 
of the tariff question. 

That General Jackson was a firm patriot — sincere- 
ly attached to the liberties and the institutions of his 

country, none can deny. Mr. Calhoun did not ques- 

70 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 7 1 

tion this, but under the influence of the personal 
animosity which had been kindled, and the strong 
bias which induced him to look with disfavor on 
everything emanating from the administration, he 
thought he saw an attempt on the part of the presi- 
dent to strengthen the executive power and patron- 
age, and to wield the influence which these gave him 
for corrupt purposes. Much as his views may have 
been colored by prejudice, he was sincere in his con- 
victions, and he was more confirmed in them by the 
removal of the deposits from the Bank of the United 
States in the fall of 1833, by order of President 
Jackson. 

In December, 1833, Mr. Clay introduced resolu- 
tions into the Senate censuring the president in the 
severest terms, and declaring that he had assumed 
authority and power not conferred by the Constitu- 
tion and laws, but in derogation of both. This reso- 
lution, together with another condemning the Secre- 
tary of the Treasury for making the removal, re- 
ceived the support of Mr. Calhoun. Yet he was no 
friend to the Bank, and in an able speech delivered 
on the 13th of January, 1834, he declared that the 
real question was not, as was insisted by the friends 
of the administration, " Bank or no Bank." " Tak- 
ing the deposit question in the broadest sense," he 
said ; " suppose, as it is contended by the friends of 
the administration, that it involves the renewal of 
the charter, and, consequently, the existence of the 
Bank itself, still the banking system would stand 
almost untouched and unimpaired. Four hundred 
banks would still remain scattered over this wide 



72 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

republic, and on the ruins of the United States Bank 
many would rise to be added to the present list. Un- 
der this aspect of the subject, the only possible ques- 
tion that would be presented for consideration would 
be, whether the banking system was more safe, more 
beneficial, or more constitutional, with or without the 
United States Bank." 

" What, then," said he, " is the real question which 
now agitates the country? I answer, it is a struggle 
between the executive and legislative departments of 
the government ; a struggle, not in relation to the 
existence of the Bank, but whether Congress or the 
President should have the power to create a bank, 
and, through it, the consequent control over the cur- 
rency of the country. This is the real question. Let 
us n(^t deceive ourselves. This league, this associa- 
tion, vivihed and sustained by receiving the deposits 
of the public money, and having their notes con- 
verted, by being received everywhere by the treasury, 
into the common currency of the country, is, to all 
intents and purposes, a bank of the United States — 
the executive bank of the United States, as distin- 
guished from that of Congress. However it might 
fail to perform satisfactorily the useful functions of 
the Bank of the United States, as incorporated by 
law, it would outstrip it — far outstrip it — in all its 
dangerous qualities, in extending the power, the in- 
fluence, and the corruption of the government. It 
was impossible to conceive any institution more ad- 
mirably calculated to advance these objects. Not 
only the selected banks, but the whole banking insti- 
tutions of the country, and with it the entire money 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 73 

power, for the purpose of speculation, peculation, 
and corruption, would be placed under the control of 
the executive." 

" So long," he remarked, " as the question is one 
between a bank of the United States, incorporated by 
Congress, and that system of banks wdiich has been 
created by the will of the executive, it is an insult to 
the understanding to discourse on the pernicious ten- 
dency and unconstitutionality of the Bank of the 
United States. To bring up that question fairly and 
legitimately, you must go one step further : you must 
divorce the government and the hank, ... or, 
if not, you are bound to incorporate a bank, as the 
only safe and efficient means of giving stability and 
uniformity to the currency. And should the deposits 
not be restored, and the present illegal and unconsti- 
tutional connection between the executive and the 
league of banks continue, I shall feel it my duty, if 
no one else moves, to introduce a measure to prohibit 
government from receiving or touching bank-notes 
in any shape whatever, as the only means left of 
giving safety and stability to the currency, and sav- 
ing the country from corruption and ruin." 

Entertaining these views, it will not appear at all 
inconsistent in Mr. Calhoun, that he favored a propo- 
sition to re-charter the United States Bank at this 
session. 

At the session of 1833-34, he supported the bill 
raising the relative value of gold compared with 
silver commonly called the " Gold Bill," and the bill 
to establish branch mints, both of which were favor- 
ite measures of the administration. These he voted 



74 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

for, because they were calculated to aid in securing 
the great end he hoped to accomplish — the restora- 
tion of a sound currency. Consistency with his 
cherished principles required this course, and where 
these were at stake he never hesitated to come to 
their defence. Vet upon minor questions he usually 
acted with the opposition. 

The vast surplus revenue which had accumulated 
in the Treasury, from customs and enormous sales 
of public lands, was a constant source of appre- 
hension to him. He feared the power which it would 
give to the President, and at the session of 1834-35 
a special committee of nine members was raised, on 
his motion, in order to inquire into the extent of the 
executive patronage, and the expediency and practi- 
cability of reducing it. The surplus on de]:)osit with 
the banks furnished vast facilities for business opera- 
tions, whether mere speculative or otherwise, and 
the volume of the currency was being rai)i(lly ex- 
panded. As a remedy for the evil, the administra- 
tion proposed either to absorb the surplus by expen- 
ditures for military defences or other works of gen- 
eral welfare, or, in the second place, to vest it in 
government stocks. Mr. Calhoun did not approve of 
either measure, because, as he thought, that the first 
would increase the executive patronage, and pave the 
way for excessive expenditures, for which another 
high tariff would eventually be required; and that 
the second would entangle the government with 
State stocks. 

He therefore favored the proposition to regulate 
the deposits with the banks, and to deposit the sur- 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 75 

plus with the States. A bill making provision for 
this regulation of the deposit banks, and the disposi- 
tion of the surplus, passed Congress in June, 1836, 
which received his vote, and under the circumstances, 
his entire approval. He would gladly have favored 
any feasible project to restore the money to the peo- 
ple who had been taxed to this extent, but he saw this 
was impossible, and therefore supported the deposit 
measure as the only alternative. 

The term of service for which Mr. Calhoun had 
been originally chosen expired in March, 1835, but 
at the session of the legislature previous, he was 
chosen for a second term by a large and flattering 
vote. South Carolina placed too high an estimate 
on his past services to part with them so soon, and 
he was too warmly attached to her to desire to be re- 
leased from his position. 

At the session of 1835-36, Mr. Calhoun voted 
against the favorite measure of Mr. Clay, to dis- 
tribute the proceeds of the public lands among the 
States, as he never failed to do when this question 
was presented, in whatsoever shape or form it 
assumed. 

During this session, also, another important ques- 
tion occupied Mr. Calhoun's attention. This was 
the subject of the reception of abolition petitions. 
Societies had been organized in the Northern and 
Middle States for the avowed purpose of procuring 
the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, 
with the intention doubtless of effecting the same 
thing ultimately in the Southern States. Presses 
were purchased, and newspapers and pamphlets is- 



^6 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

sued, teeming with the aboHtion doctrines. Petitions 
of the same character with the newspapers and 
pamphlets were also put in circulation, signed, and 
forwarded to Washington for presentation in one or 
other of the two Houses of Congress. 

Viewing these fanatical efforts, — however well in- 
tentioned might be the motives of those concerned 
in them who acted from what he deemed considera- 
tions of false philanthropy and benevolence, — as be- 
ing decidedly dangerous in their tendency as re- 
spected the peace and security of the slave-holding 
States, he resisted them at the outset. He was al- 
ways in favor, as he ex])ressed it, of meeting " the 
enemv on the frontier." In hebruary, 1836, he made 
an able report from a select committee appointed to 
consider that portion of the president's message rec- 
ommending the a(l(jption of efticient measures to pre- 
vent the circulation of incendiary publications or 
abolition petitions, pami)hlets, &c., through the mails. 
This report was accompanied by a bill, which he 
sui)ported in an earnest and powerful speech deliv- 
ered on the twelfth of April. 1836.* A difficulty 
now an^se upon this question. The Northern Whigs 
were in great i)art inclined to favor the abolitionists, 
and the Republicans were the reverse; but both par- 
ties in Congress thought it would be advisable not 
to reject the petitions on the subject of abolitionism. 
The Re]niblican members especially were apprehen- 
sive that the rejection would be regarded by their 

* The bill was ordered to a third reading by the casting vote 
of the vice-president (Mr. Van Buren', but did not finally be- 
come a law. 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 77 

constituents as a denial of the right of petition, and 
this would raise a new issue that might injure them 
as a party. Mr. Calhoun earnestly combated this 
idea, and in February, 1837, he delivered another 
speech on the subject of the reception of abolition 
petitions, in which he explained their incendiary 
character, and pointed out the offensive and insulting 
language used toward the slaveholding States. 

In January, 1837, Mr. Calhoun made another very 
able speech in opposition to the admission of the 
State of Michigan, — his opposition being based en- 
tirely upon the ground that there had been no regular 
convention held to approve the terms of admission 
prescribed by Congress. 

Meanwhile Mr. Van Buren had been elected to the 
presidency of the United States. Mr. Calhoun was 
comparatively a silent spectator of the contest. He 
adhered to his old position of neutrality, and advised 
his friends in South Carolina not to vote for either 
of the Whig candidates, Judge White or Mr. Clay, 
and in other States he recommended their support of 
the former. South Carolina gave her vote for Willie 
P. Mangum and John Tyler, both State Rights men. 

The inaugural message of Mr. Van Buren, par- 
ticularly so far as it related to the abolition excite- 
ment, was entirely satisfactory to Mr. Calhoun. A 
few weeks passed, and the terrible commercial revul- 
sion of 1837 swept over the country as with the 
besom of destruction. Mr. Calhoun had long antici- 
pated this disaster, and had advised his friends en- 
gaged in trade or connected with banks to reef their 
sails before the blast of the tempest came in its fury 



78 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

upon them. Congress was now called together by 
executive proclamation, and commenced their session 
on the 4th day of September. Previous to this time 
it had been intimated that the president would recom- 
mend an entire separation of the government from 
the banks, and in a letter written from Edgefield, 
when on his way to \\'ashingt(^n, Mr. Calhoun signi- 
fied his intention to support the administration if 
such should be their course. 

As had been predicted, Mr. \'an Buren recom- 
mended the divorce of bank and State, which had 
already taken place in point of fact by the suspension 
of specie payments on the part of the banks; and in 
a speech on a bill ])roviding for the issue of treasury 
notes, delivered on the 19th of September, and in a 
further speech on the main (juesiidu, delivered on the 
3d day of October, Mr. Calhoun fully indicated his 
intentions to go with the administration, and to 
secure an entire separation oi the government from 
the banks. 

Mr. Calhoun's course with reference to the separa- 
tion of the g(~>vernment from the banks, though per- 
fectly consistent with his previous life and with his 
well-known and often expressed views upon the sub- 
ject of the currency, did not escape the criticism and 
censure of the Whig party. Tn his speech in 1834, 
on Mr. Webster's motic^i to renew the charter of the 
United States Rank, he emphatically declared, that 
he was the partisan of no class — nor of either politi- 
cal party, '' I am neither of the opposition nor ad- 
ministration," said he. '' If I act with the former 
in any instance, it is because I approve of their course 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 79 

on the particular occasion, and I shall always be 
happy to act with them when I do approve. If I op- 
pose the administration, if I desire to see power 
change hands, it is because I disapprove of the gen- 
eral course of those in authority." 

Yet in the face of this declaration, and of the fact 
that he had never attended the political caucuses or 
meetings of the opposition, he was charged with hav- 
ing gone over to the enemy — to the administration 
party. So long as these attacks were confined to the 
public press he took no notice of them, but when Mr. 
Clay repeated the charge on the floor of the Senate, 
and attempted to chastise him by word of mouth, 
Mr. Calhoun felt bound to notice it, and in his reply 
to the senator from Kentucky, before alluded to, he 
gave utterance to his feelings in a strain of indignant 
eloquence never surpassed in that chamber. 

" Mr. Calhoun," said a writer in the Democratic 
Reviezv * alluding to this debate, '' has evidently 
taken Demosthenes for his model as a speaker — or 
rather, I suppose, he has studied, while young, his 
orations with great admiration, until they produced 
a decided impression upon his mind. His recent 
speech in defence of himself against the attacks of 
Mr. Clay, is precisely on the plan of the famous ora- 
tion De Corona, delivered by the great Athenian, in 
vindication of himself from the elaborate and artful 
attacks of ^Lschines. While the one says : ' Athe- 
nians! to you I appeal, my judges and my wit- 
nesses ! ' — the other says : ' In proof of this, I ap- 
peal to you, senators, my witnesses and my judges 

* April No,, 1838. 



8o AMERICAN lilOGRAPHY 

on this occasion ! ' yEschines accused Demosthenes 
of having received a bribe from Phihp, and the latter 
retorted by saying that the other had accused him of 
doing what he himself had notoriously done. Mr. 
Clay says that ^Ir. Calhoun had gone over, and it 
was left to time to disclose his motive. Mr. Calhoun 
retorts : *' Leave it to time to disclose my motive 
for going over! I, who have changed no opinion, 
abandoned no principle, and deserted no party ; I, 
who have stood still and maintained my ground 
against every difficulty, to be told that it is left to 
time to disclose my motive! The imputation sinks 
to the earth, with the groundless charge on which it 
rests. I stamp it. with scorn, in the dust. I pick up 
the dart, which fell harmless at mv feet. I hurl it 
back. What the senator charges on me unjustly, 
he has (icfiially dojic. He went over on a memorable 
occasion,* and did not ' leave it to time to disclose 
his motive.' '' 

Other charges made by Mr. Clay were repelled in 
similar language by Mr. Calhoun ; and his conduct 
was justified, his consistency maintained, and his 
political position explained, with great clearness and 
ability. He said that Mr. Clay had admitted he once 
bore a character for stern fidelity, but insinuated that 
it had now been forfeited. He replied, that if he 
were to select an instance on which, above all others, 
to rest his claim to such a character, it would be his 
course at this crisis. A powerful party taking advan- 

* In allusion to the course of Mr. Clay, in the winter of 1825, 
with reference to the election of Mr. Adams, and his acceptance 
of the office of Secretary of State. 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 8 1 

tage of the pecuniary embarrassments of the country 
to displace the administration would be opposed to 
him, and he should also incur the displeasure of the 
whole banking interest, with the exception of some 
of the Southern banks. Many State Rights men, 
too, for whom he cherished a brother's love, would 
not go with him. " But I saw before me," he said, 
" the path of duty; and, though rugged and hedged 
on all sides with these and many other difficulties, I 
did not hesitate a moment to take it. Yes, alone, as 
the senator sneeringly says. After I had made up 
my mind as to my course, in a conversation with a 
friend about the responsibility I would assume, he 
remarked that my own State might desert me. I 
replied that it was not impossible ; but the result has 
proved that I underestimated the intelligence and 
patriotism of my virtuous and noble State. I ask 
her pardon for the distrust implied in my answer; 
but I ask, with assurance it will be granted, on the 
grounds I shall put it — that, in being prepared to 
sacrifice her confidence, as dear to me as light and 
life, rather than disobey, on this great question, the 
dictates of my judgment and conscience, I proved 
myself not unworthy of being her representative." 

Mr. Webster also attacked Mr. Calhoun, and 
charged him with deserting the opposition when vic- 
tory was within their reach, and his " cooperation 
only was wanted to prostrate forever those in 
power." These few words, said Mr. Calhoun in his 
reply, contained the whole secret of the denunciations 
levelled against him; and as Mr. Webster declared 
that he should soon move for a renewal of the pro- 

A. B., VOL. VI. — 6 



82 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

tective policy, he pointed to this declaration as fur- 
nishing, if anything had been needed, a complete 
justification for his course. But he would not rest 
the matter here. He insisted that Mr, Webster and 
himself entertained irreconcilable opinions in rela- 
tion to the character of the government, its princi- 
ples, and its true policy; and they were in their ap- 
propriate spheres when arrayed in open hostility. 

A friend who was present during the delivery of 
Mr. Calhoun's speech in reply to Mr. Clay, says that, 
although he has heard many public speakers, he 
never witnessed such intense earnestness, such a dis- 
])lay of impassioned eloquence, as characterized this 
great effort. The keen fulgent eyes of the speaker 
shot lightnings at every glance, his hair stood on end, 
large drops of sweat rested on his brow, and every 
feature and muscle were alive with animation. And 
while this burning llood of indignation was rolling 
in a deluge from his lips, the audience were so com- 
pletely enchained that perfect silence was preserved, 
and a i)in might have been heard to drop in any part 
of the chamber; and when he declared, with a gest- 
ure suited to his words, that he hurled back the dart 
which had been thrown against him, the eyes of all 
were involuntarily turned to witness the effect of the 
blow. 



CHAPTER X 

Abolitionism. — Opinions of ]\Ir. Calhoun on Slavery. — State 
Debts.— Bankrupt Bill.— Public Lands.— Bank Bills.— The 
Veto Power. — Mr. Clay's Resolutions. — Tariff of 1842. — Ash- 
burton Treaty. 

The abolitionists had continued to increase in 
numbers and in influence in the Northern States, and 
one or both parties in that section often coquetted 
with them at the State elections, in order to secure 
the success of their candidates, and not, in a majority 
of cases perhaps, with the view of ultimately render- 
ing any assistance in the main object which they had 
in view. But they were thereby emboldened to make 
still greater efforts; they began to feel themselves of 
some consequence, and to assume the airs natural to 
those in the position which they occupied — that of a 
third party, holding, in many of the States, the bal- 
ance of power. 

While upon this subject, it will not be amiss to 
state, once for all, what were the opinions of Mr. 
Calhoun on the subject of slavery. In his view, it 
ought not to be considered, as it existed in the United 
States, in the abstract ; but rather as a political insti- 
tution, existing prior to the formation of the govern- 
ment and expressly recognized in the Constitution.* 
The framers of that instrument regarded slaves as 

* Article i,, Section 2 ; Article iv., Section 2. 

83 



84 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

property, and admitted the right of ownership in 
them.* The institution being thus acknowledged, 
he contended that the faith of ah the States was 
pledged against any interference with it in the States 
in which it existed ; and that in the District of Co- 
lumbia, and in the territories from which slavery had 
not been excluded by the Missouri Compromise, be- 
ing the common property of all the States, the owner 
of slaves enjoyed the same rights and was entitled to 
the same protection, if he chose to emigrate thither, 
or if already a resident, as if he were in one of the 
slave States — in other words, that upon common soil, 
his right of property should be respected. Any inter- 
ference with it, therefore, direct or indirect, imme- 
diate or remote, he felt bound to oppose, and did 
oppose to the \ery close of his life. 

He held, too, that it was desirable to continue the 
institution at the South; that it had been productive 
of more good than harm ; and that " in no other con- 
dition, or in any other age or country, [had] the 
Negro race ever attained so high an elevati(^n in 
morals, intelligence, or civilization." f Slavery, he 
was accustomed to say, existed in some form or an- 
other, in all civilized countries; and he was disposed 
to doubt the correctness of the sentiment contained 
in the Declaration of Independence, that all men are 
born free and equal. Natural rights, indeed, in every 
age, in every country, and under every form of gov- 
ernment, have been, and are, regulated and con- 

*"]SIadison Papers" (Debates in the Convention), pp. 

i8i, 391- 
t Letter to Mr. Pakenhani, April i8, 1844. 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 85 

trolled by political institutions. He considered the 
colored population as constituting an inferior race, 
and that slavery was not a degradation, but had the 
direct tendency to improve their moral, social, and 
intellectual condition. The situation of the slaves 
was an enviable one in comparison with that of the 
free negroes at the North, or with that of the opera- 
tives in the manufactories, and the laboring classes 
generally in Great Britain.* Of what value, except 
relatively, he asked — and asked, too, with a great 
deal of pertinence — were political rights, when he 
saw thousands of voters, in the Northern States, in 
the service of powerful monopolies or employed on 
public works fairly driven to the polls with ballots in 
their hands? 

The negro slave, he contended, felt and acknowl- 
edged his inferiority, and regarded his position as a 
proper and natural one. f The two races in the 
Southern States were almost equal in numbers. 
They could not live upon terms of equality. " It 
may, in truth, be assumed as a maxim," was his lan- 
guage, *' that two races differing so greatly, and in 
so many respects, cannot possibly exist together in 
the same country, where their numbers are nearly 
equal, without the one being subjected to the other. 
Experience has proved that the existing relation, in 
which the one is subjected to the other, in the slave- 
holding States, is consistent with the peace and 



* See Flumphrey's Tonr, vol. i. chap. 20; Durbin's Observa- 
tions in Europe, vol. ii. chap. 13 ; Head's Manufacturing Dis- 
tricts of England, passim. 

t Dr. Estes' Defence of Negro Slavery, p. 74. 



86 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

safety of both, with great improvement to the in- 
ferior ; while the same experience proves that . . . 
the abohtion of slavery would (if it did not destroy 
the inferior by contlicts, to which it would lead) re- 
duce it to the extremes of vice and wretchedness. In 
this view of the subject, it may be asserted, that what 
is called slavery is in reality a political institution, 
essential to the peace, safety, and prosperity of those 
States of the Union in which it exists." * 

Entertaining these views, it is not strange that 
Mr. Calhoun regarded the movements of the aboli- 
tionists as being dictated by a false philanthropy, and 
that he thought them calculated, if persisted in, to 
jeopard the happiness and tranquillity of the slave 
States, and to endanger the peace of the Union ; nor 
that he so often warned his fellow-citizens of the 
Southern States against the designs openly avowed, 
or secretly cherished, which, if not early opposed c^r 
counteracted, would prove highly prejudicial to their 
interests and their welfare. Where so much was at 
stake, he thought it well to be wise in time. 

At the session of 1838-39, in a speech character- 
ized by his usual ability, Mr. Calhoun opposed a bill 
introduced by Mr. Crittenden, to prevent the inter- 
ference of certain Federal officers in the elections. 
He took the ground, that the acceptance of an office 
under the Federal government did not deprive the 
individual of the right of suffrage guaranteed to 
him by the constitution and laws of his own State, 
and ought not to debar him from the exercise of any 
of the privileges incident thereto. 

* Letter to Mr. Pakenham. 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 8/ 

At the session of 1839-40, several important ques- 
tions were discussed. Mr. Calhoun made able 
speeches in opposition to the assumption of the State 
debts by the general government, — a project then 
seriously agitated by a number of leading Whigs ; 
and to the bankrupt bill, which he approved, how- 
ever, as respected its compulsory features relating to 
individuals. He thought the bill ought not to include 
banks, and decidedly condemned the insolvent 
features introduced into it. But his ablest speech at 
this session was made upon his resolutions in the case 
of the brig Enterprise, on the 13th of March, 1840. 
These resolutions affirmed, and Mr. Calhoun main- 
tained with much power and eloquence in his speech, 
that a ship or a vessel on the high seas, in time of 
peace, engaged in a lawful voyage, was, according to 
the laws of nations, under the exclusive jurisdiction 
of the State to which her flag belonged, — as much 
so as if constituting a part of its own domain; that 
if such ship or vessel should be forced, by stress of 
weather, or other unavoidable cause, into the port of 
a friendly power, she would lose none of the rights 
appertaining to her on the high seas, but, on the con- 
trary, she, and her cargo and persons on board, with 
their property, and all the rights belonging to their 
personal relations, as established by the laws of the 
State to which they belong, would be placed under 
the protection which the laws of nations extend to 
the unfortunate under such circumstances ; and that 
the brig Enterprise, which was forced unavoidably, 
by stress of weather, into Port Hamilton, Bermuda 
Island, while on a lawful voyage on the high seas, 



88 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

from one port of the Union to another, came within 
the principles embraced in his resolutions, and the 
seizure and detention of the negroes on board, by the 
local authority of the island,* was an act in violation 
of the laws of nations, and highly unjust to our own 
citizens, to whom they belonged. 

At the presitlential election in 1840, Mr. Calhoun 
supported Mr. \'an liurcn, as did his friends in 
South Carolina. The administration of that gentle- 
man had been conducted, on all important points, in 
entire consonance, as Mr. Calhoun believed, with the 
Republican ])rinciples; and he decidedly approved, 
therefore, of giving the electoral vote of the State to 
him. 

Next in importance to the question of the currency, 
Mr. Calhoun regarded that of the public lands. At 
the session of 1840-41, he discussed the whole policy 
of the government with respect to the latter subject, 
lie delivered three speeches: one on the i)r(_)spective 
preemption bill, which he opposed; the second on an 
amendment, offered by Mr. Crittenden as a substi- 
tute, providing for the distribution among the States 
of the rexenue arising from the sale of the public 
lands; and the third in reply to the speeches of Mr. 
Webster and Mr. Clay on Mr. Crittenden's amend- 
ment. Mr. Calhoun had often rellected on this sub- 
ject, and was therefore entirely at home upon it. He 
was opposed, /// toto, to the scheme of distribution, 
and advocated the cession of the public lands to the 
new States in which they were situated. '* As far 
back as February, 1837, he offered a substitute, in 

* As British territory, where no slaves were permitted. 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 89 

the form of an amendment to the bill ' to suspend the 
sale of the public lands,' in which he proposed to 
cede to the new States the portion of the public lands 
lying within their respective limits, on certain condi- 
tions, which he accompanied by a speech explanatory 
of his views and reasons. He followed up the sub- 
ject in a speech delivered in January, 1839, on the 
Graduation Bill ; and in May, 1840, an elaborate and 
full report was made from the Committee on Public 
Lands, and a bill introduced by him, containing sub- 
stantially the same provisions with his original 
proposition. 

In 1 84 1 Mr. Harrison became president, but died 
shortly after his inauguration, and Mr. Tyler suc- 
ceeded him in the presidential office. Previous to 
this time, an extra session of Congress had been 
called, upon the urgent solicitation of leading Whigs, 
who were in haste to undo some legislation of former 
years, and to establish, as far as they could by stat- 
ute, the Utopia in governmental policy which had 
long been the subject alike of their dreams and their 
hopes. 

Congress assembled ^for the extra session on the 
last day of May, 1841 ; Mr. Calhoun again appearing 
in his place in the Senate, to which he had been re- 
elected for another term. High in hope, rendered 
confident in tone and overbearing in manner by their 
recent victory, and full to overflowing with ardor 
and enthusiasm, the Whig members of the 27th Con- 
gress entered the Capitol. In their haste to carry 
their favorite measures, they stopped not for forms 
or ceremonies. They followed without hesitation in 



90 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

the wake of their leader Mr. Clay, who brougfht for- 
ward and urged the adoption of his plans, with the 
boldness and manliness, and, withal, the arrogance 
forming such prominent traits in his character. The 
Independent Treasury law was repealed, against the 
votes of Mr. Calhoun and his Republican friends. In 
the minority as they were, it seemed impossible to 
oppose any checks or hindrances to the movements 
of the party in power. 

Having disposed, as they thought forever, of this 
great I\epul)lican measure, the Whigs began to de- 
velop their own policy. Their system of measures, 
leaving out of view minor and comparatively unim- 
portant propositions, was a triad — the Distribution 
of the Land Revenue among the States, the Incorpo- 
ration of a National Bank, and the Revision of the 
Tariff so as to afford increased protection. 

Distribution was but another name for the assump- 
tion of the State debts, and its object was to create a 
necessity for a high protective tariff, by withdrawing 
the revenue derived from the sale of the public lands 
from the treasury. Mr. Calhoun opposed it, as he 
had done at previous sessions ; and on the 24th of 
August, 1841, he delivered one of his ablest speeches 
against the passage of the bill. It was an effort every 
way worthy of the cause and the man. He, of 
course, took the old Republican ground, that the 
original cession of the public lands was made to fur- 
nish the General Government with the means of de- 
fence, in opposition to the Federal doctrine that it 
was the trustee of the States making the cession ; and 
that if this resource were taken away, a much higher 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 9I 

tariff would be needed for revenue — a result which 
the protectionists were extremely anxious to secure 
— and thus the policy of a high protective tariff with 
a permanent distribution of the surplus revenue, 
would be fastened on the country for all time to 
come. 

So palpable were the objections raised by Mr. Cal- 
houn and other senators to the policy of distribution, 
I and they were urged with such powder and effect, that 
a sufficient number of Whigs united with them to 
procure the adoption of a proviso to the bill, declar- 
ing that the distribution should cease whenever the 
average rate of duties collected exceeded twenty per 
cent. Before the law went into operation, the Whigs 
increased the duties beyond that average, and it re- 
mained a dead letter on the statute book. 

The Bankrupt bill was again brought forward at 
this session, and again opposed by Mr. Calhoun. 

Two different bills providing for the incorporation 
of a national bank — the second one, however, dis- 
guising the project under the name of a fiscal agent 
of the treasury — passed both houses of Congress. 
Mr. Calhoun now felt free to vote upon the question 
as if it were an entirely new one; and, as he was 
totally opposed to any connection between the gov- 
ernment and banks, he voted against both measures. 
President Tyler, true to his State Rights principles, 
vetoed each bill in turn. The Whig party were con- 
founded and dismayed ; Congress adjourned in con- 
fusion, and the cabinet was dissolved. At the ensu- 
ing session — that of 1841-42 — a fierce onslaught was 
made, under the auspices of Mr. Clay, upon the 



92 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

President, and upon his exercise of the veto power. 
However much Mr. Calhoun was disposed to resist 
the usurpations of the executive branch of the gov- 
ernment, he would ])}■ no means trespass upon its 
rights ; and he regarded the veto as one of the great 
conservative features of the Constitution — a check 
upon hasty legislation and a protection to the Execu- 
tive, the States, and the people, against legislative 
encroachment. 

One of the al)lest speeches he ever delivered was 
made on this c[uestion, and in defense of the veto 
power, which Mr. Clay proposed t(^ take away in part 
from the President, by an amendment of the Con- 
stitution. 

Early in this session, Mr. Clay had introduced a 
series of resolutions expressive of his views in rela- 
tion to the revenues and expenditures of the govern- 
ment. He avowed himself friendly to the general 
[)rinciples of the C(jmprumise act and the ad 7'alorcni 
feature, proposed to raise no more revenue than was 
necessary for the economical administration of the 
government, and disapproved of any resort to loans 
or treasury notes, in time of peace, except to meet 
temporary deficits. So far Mr. Calhoun agreed with 
him : but he further proposed to raise all the revenue 
from customs, to surrender the land fund to the 
States, and to repeal the proviso in the distribution 
act ; and upon these points they wholly disagreed. 
Mr. Calhoun spoke on the resolutions, on the T6th of 
March, and protested in earnest terms against any 
departure from the great principle of the Compro- 
mise act, that no duty should be imposed after the 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 93 

30th day of June, 1842, except for revenue necessary 
for the government economically administered. 

The protest of Mr. Calhoun was unavailing. Mr. 
Clay himself resigned his seat in the Senate, partly, 
it ma}^ be, because the friends of protection were be- 
seeching him to lend his aid in raising the duties ; 
and this he could not have done, without violating 
his solemn declaration made in 1833, that the com- 
promise act was " a treaty of peace and amity " not 
to be disturbed,* and departing from the sentiments 
avowed in his speech on his resolutions, that specific 
duties and discriminations were unwise and unjust, 
and the ad valorem principle was entitled to the 
preference.! 

But, in the absence of Mr. Clay, there were other 
champions of protection to take his place, and the 
renewal of this perilous policy had been predeter- 
mined. Were it not for the disordered currency, the 
large expenditures, and the excessive issues of paper 
money by the banks, the influence of the compromise 
act would have been healthful. But the sudden re- 
duction of the duties, on the 31st of December, 1841, 
in the then embarassed condition of the country, oc- 
casioned a great falling off in the revenue. This was 
a misfortune, as Mr. Calhoun readily admitted ; and 
he would cheerfully have favored any temporary ex- 
pedient, or any moderate change in the tariff system, 
which would have made good the deficiency and pre- 
vented a recurrence of the evil. With this the manu- 
facturers were not content ; they wanted to substitute 

* Speech in the Senate, February 15, 1833. 
t Speech, March i, 1842. 



94 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY • 

the old protective duties for the revenue duties,* and 
to restore the si)ecilic features and the minimums. 

In the first place, a provisional tariff bill was 
passed, extending the compromise act to the ist of 
August, as the minimum was reached on the 30th 
of June, 184J, and after that date no duty exceeding 
twenty per cent, was to be collected, nor that eve/:, 
as was thought by many, without some special law. 
The provisional bill rcfpiired the duties to be collected 
at the same rates as were collectable on the ist of 
June: it also postponed the distribution of the pro- 
ceeds of the public lands, but did not surrender the 
principle, and Mr. Calhoun and other Republican 
senators therefore opjiosed it. It was vetoed by the 
President; and the act of 1842, establishing a rate 
of duties averaging nearly forty per cent, on the ag- 
gregate value of imports, and of course highly pro- 
tective, subsequently passed both houses — each by a 
single vote — and was reluctantly signed by the Presi- 
dent. It is almost unnecessary to say, that Mr. Cal- 
houn opposed the passage of this bill from first to 
last. He likewise delivered an able speech against it 
on the 5th of August, and pronounced it to be de- 
cidedlv worse than '' the bill of abominations." Its 
protective features were artfully concealed under 
specific rates and minimums, but its true cliaracter 
could not be mistaken, and it was generally con- 

* The terms protective duty and revenue duty are often mis- 
applied. A revenue duty is one whose increase would he fol- 
lowed hy an increase of revenue, or which is already fixed at 
the maximum of revenue; and a protective duty is one aiming 
at absolute prohibition, or which nmst be reduced in order to 
increase the revenue by encouraging importation. 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN " 95 

demned throughout the country, by all except the 
manufacturers and the ultra Whigs. 

On the 20th day of August, 1842, the Senate rati- 
fied the treaty of Washington, or the Ashburton 
treaty, by which the northeastern boundary was sat- 
isfactorily settled, by the decisive vote of 39 to 9. 
Mr. Calhoun voted with the majority, and delivered 
a speech in favor of the treaty, marked by great 
ability and power, which elicited the highest enco- 
miums in England as well as in America. He had 
never doubted the justice of the claims of Maine, yet, 
as the United States had in effect agreed to com- 
promise the question by submitting it to arbitration, 
he approved of the treaty as a fair and honorable 
settlement of t4ie difficulty. He fully concurred in 
the sentiments afterwards expressed so pertinently 
and forcibly by Sir Robert Peel, in reference to this 
and the Oregon question, that it was '' the better 
policy to propose, in the spirit of peace, conditions 
perfectly compatible with the honor of each country, 
and not requiring from either any sacrifice, territorial 
or commercial, which would not be dearly purchased 
by the cost of a single week's hostilities." * 

* Address to his constituents at Tamworth, 1847. 



CHAPTER XI 

Oregon. — Mr. Calhoun Resigns. — Secretary of State. — Annexa- 
tion of Texas. — Polk's Administration. — Mr. Calhoun Re- 
turns to the Senate. — War with Mexico. — Slavery. — Mr. 
Clay's Plar of Compromise. — Last Speech of Mr. Calhoun. 

For reasons similar to those which had influenced 
him in voting for the ratification of the Treaty of 
Wasliington, Air. Calhoun opposed the efforts, 
whether intentional or otherwise, made during the 
latter part of Mr. Tyler's administration and the first 
year of Mr. Polk's, to produce a war between the 
United States and Great Britain on account of the 
Oregon difficulty. He did not think that the title to 
the whole of Oregon, as high as 54° 40', was entirely, 
unquestionable. On the contrary, he was of the 
opinion, that the 49th parallel, or some line near that, 
should be adopted as the boundary. As he regarded 
this matter, both nations were committed, by the 
negotiations of 18 18, 1824 and 1826-27, to a com- 
promise of the question by the mutual surrender of a 
part of their respective claims ; and at the session of 
1842-43, he delivered a speech on the Oregon bill. 
introduced by Mr. Linn, of Missouri, which pro- 
vided for orrantins: lands, and for commencing svste- 
tnaticallv the colonization and settlement of the terri- 

96 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 97 

tory in dispute. He opposed the bill, and insisted 
that it was neither wise nor prudent to assert at that 
time the exclusive right to the territory, as the bill 
contemplated. In his view, the position of the 
United States should be one of masterly inactivity. 
The possession of the Pacific coast was of great im- 
portance to them, as it could not be doul^ted that their 
authority would soon extend from ocean to ocean. 
The naval superiority of Great Britain, in men and 
materiel, if not in efficiency, was not to be doubted 
nor denied, and it was evident that she could dis- 
patch troops and munitions of war to Oregon with 
about as much facility as the United States, or, from 
her East India possessions, with even greater ease. 
He was in favor therefore, of leaving causes already 
in operation, to work as they had done, silently. The 
tide of voluntary emigration from the older States 
and territories was passing beyond the Rocky Moun- 
tains ; and it was more than probable, that in a few 
years Oregon would contain a large population, 
ready and willing, if the title of the United States 
should then be asserted by force of arms, essentially 
to aid in its support and defence. 

At the close of this session, which terminated in 
March, 1843, ^^- Calhoun resigned his seat in the 
Senate. His private affairs had become considerably 
embarrassed, in consequence of his protracted ab- 
sences from home, and his inability to supervise and 
direct their management except during brief inter- 
vals. Of senatorial honors, too, he had had enough 
to satisfy the ambition of any man. Many of his 
friends, doubtless, looked forward to his elevation to 

A. B., VOL. VI. — 7 



98 AxMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

the highest office in the nation, — as they had a right 
to do, for he was in every way worthy of this proud 
distinction, and would have conferred more honor 
upon it than would have been reflected upon himself. 
Did he cherish any aspirations of this character, they 
were confined to his own bosom, and never gave him 
a moment's pain. Retired to the privacy of his beau- 
tiful home at Fort Hill, in the vicinity of Pendleton 
Court House, he was far happier, in the enjoyment 
of domestic happiness, and in the occupations and 
pursuits of a planter, than while mingling in the 
bustle and turmoil of party politics, which was 
wholly unavoidable while he was at Washington. 

But as the war-horse never forgets the sights and 
sounds that animated him on the field of battle, so he 
remembered the important subjects that had en- 
grossed his attention, and taxed his powers, in the 
stormy debate; and if he did not long to participate 
again in the strife, his thoughts were often turned to 
the spot where " the war of words was high." The 
theory of our government — of all governments — was 
still his study; and politics, in the enlarged, more 
comprehensive, and philoso])hical sense of the term, 
daily attended him in his study and in his walks, as 
familiar spirits with whom he loved to take sweet 
counsel together. 

On the '28th of February, 1844, Mr. Upshur, the 
talented and accomplished Secretary of State, was 
suddenly killed on board the steamer Princeton, by 
the explosion of one of its guns. Previous to the 
occurrence of this melancholy event, negotiations had 
been opened between the authorities of Texas and 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 99 

those of the United States, for the annexation of her 
territory to that of the latter power. '^ 

I Mr. Calhoun had been long known as a warm 
friend to the acquisition of Texas.; He was never of 
the opinion that Louisiana extended beyond the 
Sabine, and did not, therefore, as a member of Mr. 
Monroe's cabinet, disapprove of the surrender of the 
American claim to the territory west of that river.* 
/ In May, 1836, he proposed the recognition of the in- 
dependence of Texas, by a resolution introduced 
into the Senate;^ in 1837, he voted for the acknowl- 
edgment of her independence; in 1838, he supported 
a resolution declaring that the acquisition of Texas 
was desirable, whenever it could be made with her 
consent, and consistent with the treaties, faith, and 
stipulations of the United States; and w^hen Texas 
had maintained her position of successful rebellion 
for a period of nine years, during which time she had 
exercised before the world all the rights and powers 
of an independent State, he did not consider it requi- 
site or necessary to consult the government from 
w^hose authority she had revolted, before entering 
into a treaty of annexation wdth her. 
j There were several powerful reasons, as Mr. Cal- 
houn thought, >which imperatively demanded the an- 
nexation of Texas to the territories of the United 
States. In the first place, it was important because 
of its proximity to New Orleans, the great emporium 
of the valley of the Mississippi, and the liability of 
the latter to be attacked from it under numerous dis- 
advantages, in a state of war ; in the second place, it 

* Address to the People of the Southern States, July 5th, 1849. 

i LofO. 



100 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

was Important, because Eng-land desired to secure 
Texas as a commercial dependency,* from which she 
could obtain cotton in abundance for her manufacto- 
ries, and live oak for the use of her immense naval 
establishment, — and thus the pecuniary interests of 
the cotton-g-rowing States, which furnished the Eng- 
lish manufacturers with their chief supply of the 
raw material, were likely to be seriously ]M-ejudice(l ; 
and in the third jilace. it was important, because Eng-- 
land and France were exertino- all their influence to 
prevent the annexation, and the former had favored 
])r()jccts for the abolition of slavery in Texas, wdiich, 
if it should take place, could not fail to disturb the 
peace and tranriuillity of the American l^nion. '• It 
is true, that the British Secretary of Foreign affairs 
(Lord Aberdeen), while admitting the desire of his 
g^overnment to witness the abolition of slavery in 
Texas, insisted that they had no intention of inter- 
fering in any way with the institutions of the United 
States, or of any portion of them ; t but it is equally 
true, that frankness never characterized British 
diplomacy. Lord Aberdeen had had an interview 
with a deputation of the World's Convention, upon 
the subject of procuring the abolition of slavery in 
Texas; and he had publicly avowed his feelings and 
wishes in this respect, on the floor of Parliament. J^ 
Tt was notori(Uis, too, that the Canadas had for years 

* See the Speech of Mr. Houston in the U. S. Senate, — Con- 
r^ressional Glohe — 2d session, 2Qth Congress — p. 459. 

t Letter of Mr. Calhoun to Mr. Pakenham, April 18, 1844. 

t Senate Doc. 341 — ist session, 28tli Congress — p. 48. 

§ Conversation in the House of Lords, hetween Lord 
Brougham and Lord Aberdeen — See London Morning Chron- 
icle, August 19, 1843. 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 10 1 

been filled with the emissaries of British abolitionists, 
who were constantly engaged in efforts to promote 
the escape of slaves from their masters in the South- 
ern States of the Union ; and it could not be doubted 
that they anticipated a much better field for their 
operations, if slavery could be abolished in Texas, 
close upon the borders of the slaveholding States. 
^ Such being the well-known sentiments of Mr. Cal- 
houn with reference to the proposed annexation of 
Texas, he was invited by President Tyler, who had 
reconstructed his cabinet from the members of both 
political parties, to take the place at the head of the 
State Department made vacant by the death of Mr. 
Upshur. After some hesitation, which was at length 
overcome by the importance of this pending question, 
Mr. Calhoun accepted'the appointment-f— the nomina- 
tion having been unanimously confirmed by the Sen- 
ate without even going through the formality of a 
reference to a committee — and immediately repaired 
to his post at Washington, i On the I2th day of 
April, 1844, he had the gratification of signing a 
treaty of annexation with the representatives of the 
Texan government. ' 

The treaty w^as discussed for several weeks in the 
Senate, but was finally rejected by that body, partly 
on account of political considerations and the objec- 
tion of the northern Whig senators to the extension 
of the slave territory of the Union ; but mainly, for 
the reason, that the boundaries of Texas were not 
defined, though it was well understood that she laid 
claim to all the territory North and East of the Riq 
del Norte, or Rio Grande, not belonging to the United 



I02 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

States — the justice of which claim was disputed by 
most, if not all, the senators who voted against the 
treaty. No provision was inserted in the treaty in 
regard to the boundary, because it proposed to annex 
Texas as a territory, and the right to settle it would, 
of course, belong to the government of the United 
State. In this view of the case, as soon as the treaty 
was concluded, the American chat\^c d'affaires was 
instructed by Mr. C'alhoun to assure the Mexican 
Government that the President of the United States 
desired to settle all ([uestions between the two coun- 
tries that might grow out of the treaty, or any 
other cause, on liberal and satisfactory terms; and 
that the boundary of Texas was purposely left un- 
defined in the treaty, in order that it might l)e an 
open (piestion to be fairly and fully discussed and 
settled.* An envoy was shortly after sent to Mex- 
ico, with instructions to make the same assurances, 
and with full powers to enter upon the negotiation.! 
Meanwhile. Mr. Polk had been put in nomination 
for the ])residency by the Republican (Democratic) 
party, as the avowed friend of the immediate annex- 
ation of Texas; and at the election in the fall of 
1844, he was triumphantly chosen over Mr. Clay, 
the Whig candidate, and a decided opponent of the 
measure. Other ((uestions — such as the protective 
policy, internal improvements, a national bank and 
an independent treasury — were likewise at issue. 
Upon these Mr. Polk coincided with Mr. Calhoun, 
and the latter was highly gratified at his success. 

* Senate Doc. 341 — ist session, 28th Congress — p. 53. 
t Documents accompanying President's Message, 2nd session, 
28th Congress. 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN IO3 

Public opinion being now ascertained to be fav- 
orable to the annexation, a joint resolution was 
brought forward and passed at the second session 
of the twenty-eighth Congress, under which Texas 
was at length annexed. On the accession of Mr. 
Polk, in March, 1845, niany of Mr. Calhoun's 
friends were quite anxious that he should be con- 
tinued in the cabinet, in the office of Secretary of 
State, but he promptly informed the new president, 
that he was unwilling to remain in the cabinet. He 
was not by any means unfriendly to the incoming 
administration, but he desired to maintain a posi- 
tion of quasi independence. But aside from this con- 
sideration, there were other reasons that influenced 
him. There were, among the supporters of Mr. 
Polk, many who were not favorable to the an- 
nexation of Texas, or who were dissatisfied with 
the manner in which it had been effected ; * and it 
was to be feared that, if Mr. Calhoun remained in the 
cabinet, they would attempt to embarrass the admin- 
istration, for the reason that he had been the most 
efficient agent in securing that valuable acquisition 
of territory. ( He had also questioned the propriety 
of a resolution adopted by the convention that nom- 
inated Mr. Polk, in favor of asserting the title of the 
United States to the whole of Oregon; and when 
he saw an effort making in the north and west, to 
force the question to a settlement, at the hazard of 
bringing on a war with Great Britain, he had opened 

* Among the supporters of Mr. Clay there were probably as 
many who approved of the annexation, as there were friends 
of Mr. Polk who opposed it. 



104 AMERICAN BIOGRAniY 

a negotiation with the British minister for the ad- 
justment of the conflicting claims. His course in 
this respect was not satisfactory to all the republi- 
can members from the northern and western States, 
and the harmony of the party, for the time at least, 
was probably secured by his retiring from the 
cabinet, 

1 But Mr. Polk shared in the feeling common to 
the prudent and sagacii^us politicians in both par- 
ties, that Mr. Calhoun's abilities — his caution, skill, 
and foresight. — might be of great benefit to the 
country in a diplomatic capacity, and therefore ten- 
dered to him the mission to England./ This he de- 
clined, both on account of the indispositic^n of his 
daughter, and because of his firm conviction that 
the Orciron dirficultv. in rcijard to which he felt 
great anxiety, could l)e settled only at \\\ashington 
— that " the peace," as he said, " was to be made 
here." 

Air. Calhoun had been succeeded in the Senate 
by Judge Huger, but the expression of the whole 
South was so earnest and so united in favor of the 
return of the former to his old position, that the 
Judge resigned his seat, and Mr. Calhoun was 
chosen to fill the unexpired term. He would will- 
ingly have retired once more to private life, but his 
friends insisted that the country had need of his 
services in the settlement of the Oregon question, 
and he yielded to their wishes. He again took his 
place in that august body of which he had long been 
one of the most distinguished ornaments, and had 
the proud satisfaction of defending the Oregon 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN I05 

treaty of 1846, and of contributing to its ratification 
by his vote. 

In November, 1845, ^ South-Western Conven- 
tion, composed of delegates from the southern and 
western States, was held at Memphis, Tennessee 
Mr. Calhoun attended as a delegate from South 
Carolina, and was chosen president of the conven- 
tion. Its object was to promote the development 
of the resources of the western and south-western 
States ; and resolutions, and a memorial to Con- 
gress, setting forth the objects had in view, and the 
action required by the general government, were 
adopted. Mr. Calhoun did not concur in all the pro- 
ceedings, though approving of them in the main. 
He presented the memorial in the Senate, at the first 
session of the twenty-ninth Congress, and on his 
motion it was referred to a select committee of which 
he was made chairman. On the 26th of June, 1846, 
he made a report, luminous in style and masterly 
in argument, in which may be found his matured 
opinions upon the subject of improvements by the 
general government, more particularly with respect 
to harbors and rivers. 

He thought that the navigation of the Mississippi 
river and its navigable tributaries, where three or 
more States bordered upon them — which was the 
main subject of consideration at the Memphis Con- 
vention — might and ought to be improved by the 
general government, by the removal of obstructions. 
He derived the power to make these improvements, 
not from the clause in the constitution authorizing 
Congress to provide for the '' common defence and 



I06 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

general welfare," but from that authorizing Con- 
gress to " regulate commerce with foreign nations 
and among the several States." Harbors for shel- 
ter and for the navy, he was of opinion, might be 
made in the Mississippi and its tributaries ; but 
canals around falls or other obstructions could not 
be made, except that where they passed through the 
public domain, alternate sections of land might be 
granted to aid in their construction. Where a tribu- 
tary of the Mississippi was bordered by less than 
three States, he thought it should be improved by 
the State or States which it intersected, or by indi- 
viduals. The same principles he applied to other 
rivers emptying into the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlan- 
tic, and the lakes. He also expressed the opinion 
that the power to regulate commerce eml^raced the 
establishment of light-houses, piers, buoys, beacons, 
and harbors for shelter and the navy, on the sea 
coast, the lakes, and the rivers intersecting three 
or more States. Commercial harbors, he thought, 
should be constructed by the States ; and Congress 
should empower them to lay tonnage duties for this 
purpose. The general government, he maintained, 
had no power to aid directly in the construction of 
roads or canals, but. as in the case of canals around 
falls, alternate sections of the public land intersected 
by them might be granted, because such improve- 
ments were calculated to raise the value of the 
remaining sections. 

Cherishing these views, Mr. Calhoun cordially 
approved of the veto of the Harbor and River bill 
by President Polk, in August, 1846, and of the gen- 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN IO7 

eral principles of his special message on the subject 
of internal improvements, dated the 15th of Decem- 
ber, 1847. 

x\t the session of 1845-6, Mr. Calhoun was grati- 
fied by the reenactment of the Independent Treasury 
bill, with some modifications which experience had 
shown to be necessary, and doubly so, by the estab- 
lishment of a new tariff of duties based upon strict 
revenue principles. The protracted struggle was 
brought to a close. Free trade was at length trium- 
phant. There was an end of distribution sustained 
by a protective tariff. The important truths which 
he had labored so long to establish were now ac- 
knowledged with a unanimity that promised to en- 
sure the much desired permanence in the imposition 
and collection of duties. The effect of this great 
triumph was not confined to this side of the Atlan- 
tic; Cobden and his associates were inspired to new 
efforts by the success of Calhoun; and the ablest 
statesmen of Great Britain, the Peels and the Rus- 
sells, yielded to the influences that were breaking 
down the barriers of commercial intercourse. Mr. 
Calhoun would have been more than human, had he 
not rejoiced to witness this result of his exertions. 
But he indulged in no unseemly expressions of 
gratification. 

Having aided in the settlement of the Oregon 
question, and in the enactment of the tariff law 
of 1846, Mr. Calhoun would now gladly have re- 
turned to the peace and quietude of the happy home, 
ever cheered and enlivened by his presence; for his 
private affairs demanded his attention, and his health 



I08 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

was considerably impaired. It was his misfortune, 
too. to be constantly misrepresented by som.e of the 
friends of the administration, who seemed unable 
to comprehend the motives that prompted him to 
vote in opposition to them, when required by the 
rigid adherence to his principles, which it was his 
pride to maintain. But the war with Mexico in- 
duced him to remain in the Senate, t(^ which he was 
reelected for another term in 1846, and to continue 
in the position which he had i^'raced, and in whicli 
it was his happy fate to die, " with the harness on 
his back." 

Had he conducted the negotiations for the an- 
nexation of IVxas from the beginning, under the 
administration of Mr. Tyler, it is highly probable 
that our peaceful relations with Mexico would have 
been preserved. He was a great enemy to war. and 
his policy was always that of peace. lie had long 
feared that hostilities with Mexico would ensue, 
and yet he thought, to the last, a collision might 
have been avoided. Influenced by these feelings, 
he refused to vote either for or against the act of 
May, 1846, declaring the existence of a state of war; 
yet he supported for the most part the measures of 
the administration, looking to the vigorous prosecu- 
tion of hostilities, till the session of 1847-8, when 
he proposed resolutions disapproving of the con- 
quest of Mexico, for the purpose of incorporating 
it into the Union, or holding it as a province ; and 
on the 4th of January, 1848, he delivered a speech 
in their favor. At the previous session he had sug- 
gested the withdrawal of the American troops to 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN IO9 

a defensive line, and the occupation of the territory 
behind it, and the blockade of the ports of Mexico, 
till terms of peace were accepted. His resolutions 
were offered for the same purpose, and he enforced 
his views upon the defensive policy with great abil- 
ity. Before any final action was had upon his reso- 
lutions, the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was laid 
before the Senate and ratified with his vote. 

But a grave and important question arose out of 
the war — one which Mr. Calhoun anticipated, and 
which agitated the country from one end to the 
other. By the treaty of peace, California and New 
Mexico were annexed to the United States, and the 
Rio Grande was established as the southwestern 
boundary of the Union with the assent and con- 
currence of the Mexican government. The Aboli- 
tion feeling had been constantly increasing at the 
North, and the Whig party there, with very few 
exceptions, and a considerable portion of the Demo- 
crats, were more or less under its influence, even 
though many of them deprecated the constant agi- 
tation of the subject. Sectional animosities had 
been aroused; at the North, the article of the Con- 
stitution, and the laws of Congress providing for the 
recapture of fugitive slaves, had been repeatedly dis- 
regarded or set at defiance; and questionable meas- 
ures of retaliation had been adopted in some of the 
southern States. 

An effort was now made in Congress to prohibit 
the extension of slavery to the territory acquired 
from Mexico, at the time of forming territorial 
governments. Mr. Calhoun contributed with all 



no AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

his might and zeal in resisting every effort of this 
character, and on the 27th of June, 1848, he made 
an able speech in reply to Mr. Dix of New York, 
on the bill providing a territorial government for 
Oregon, which it was proposed to amend, so as for- 
ever to exclude slavery therefrom. He denied that 
Congress had the exclusive right of legislation over 
the territories, and insisted that it could not, by its 
action, take away from the people the power of mak- 
ing such municipal regulations as they pleased, when 
state constitutions were adopted. He also defended 
the institution of Slavery, but at the same time con- 
tended that the abstract question of Slavery was 
merged in the higher one of self-defence on the 
part of the Southern States. The North, he said, 
was bent on securing the balance of power, and 
that once gained, abolitionism would break down 
the ramparts of the Constitution, and the rights of 
the States would no longer be respected. At the 
session of 1847-8, the Slavery question prevented 
the passage of territorial bills; but at the ensuing 
session the subject was again agitated. 

In the meantime the presidential election had 
taken place, and the Whig candidate. General Tay- 
lor, who refused to commit himself on the question, 
was elected over General Cass, the Democratic nom- 
inee, who had opposed the efforts of the Slavery 
exclusionists. Mr. Calhoun was much chagrined at 
this result, and when Congress came together in 
December, 1848, he advised a meeting of the mem- 
bers from the slaveholding States to be held, to delib- 
erate on the course proper to be pursued. His ad- 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN III 

vice was followed ; a meeting- was held ; and an ad- 
dress prepared by him was adopted, which reviewed 
the origin and history of the abolition movement, 
and the aggressions upon the rights of the South, 
and pointed out the evils which must result, and 
the necessity of united and harmonious action to 
prevent them. This session also passed by without 
a settlement of the question, and in the summer of 
1849 ^'^^- Calhoun had occasion again to make 
known his opinions, in an address to the people of 
the Southern States, dated at Fort Hill on the 15th 
of July, in reply to a speech of Colonel Benton to 
his constituents in Missouri, charging the former 
with having repeatedly abandoned the interests of 
the South, and with endeavoring to promote the 
dissolution of the Union. Mr. Calhoun defended 
himself with more than his usual ability, and some- 
times with not a little asperity. He retraced his 
whole course in public life, and insisted that he had 
ever been, as he ever should be, firm in maintaining 
the rights of the slaveholding States under the com- 
promises of the Constitution, and faithful to the 
Union so long as it could be preserved in the spirit 
of its inception. 

When Congress again came together, Mr. Cal- 
houn was in feeble health, in consequence of a pul- 
monary complaint of long standing which had been 
for some time growing upon him more rapidly than 
it had done, for the reason probably, that his mind 
was kept in a constant state of excitement by the 
agitation of the slavery question. Meanwhile Cali- 
fornia had adopted a state constitution prohibiting 



112 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

slavery, and now applied for admission into the 
Union, supported by a favorable recommendation of 
the president. General Taylor. The elements of 
controversv were at once roused ui) more fiercelv 
than before, and the Union seemed about to be vio- 
lently ruptured. Various propositions were offered 
with the hope of settling the difficulty forever, and 
among others, Mr. Clay offered a series of resolu- 
tions as a compromise, or an amicable arrangement 
of the questions in controversy. The general feat- 
ures of Mr. Clay's plan were, — the admission of 
California; the formation of territorial governments 
for the remainder of the territory acquired from 
Mexico, without containing any provision whatso- 
ever in reerard to slaverv ; declarine: that tlic aboli- 
tion of slavery in the District of Columbia was inex- 
pedient, that the trade in slaves brought from with- 
out the District ought to be prohibited therein, but 
that Congress possessed no power to obstruct the 
slave trade between the States ; and the more effect- 
ual provision by law for the restitution of fugitive 
slaves. 

Mr. Calhoun had convinced himself that if Cali- 
fornia were admitted as a State, and the balance of 
power thus assured to the non-slaveholding States, 
there would be no security for the South without 
an amendment of the Constitution. Day after day, 
in the early part of the session, he took his place 
punctually in the Senate, until his failing strength 
warned him that the hand of the destroyer was al- 
ready upon him. He then retired to his room, and 
there prepared his speech on the Slavery Question 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN II3 

— the last great effort of his powerful mind. Unable 
to deliver it himself, it was read in his presence by 
his colleague. Judge Butler, on the 4th day of ^larch, 
1850. The essential and practical conclusion of 
this great historical political address may be found 
in the following passage : 

" Having now shown what cannot save the Union, I return 
to the question with which I commenced — How can the Union 
be sa\-ed? There is but one way by which it can, with any cer- 
tainty, be saved, and that is by a full and final settlement, on the 
principles of justice, of all the questions at issue between the 
two sections. The South asks for justice, simple justice, and 
less she ought not to take. 

"But can this be done? Yes, easily; not by the weaker 
party, for it can of itself do nothing — not even protect itself — 
but by the stronger. The North has only to will it, to do jus- 
tice, and perform her duty, in order to accomplish it — to do 
justice by conceding to the South an equal right in the acquired 
territory ; and to do her duty by causing the stipulations rela- 
tive to fugitive slaves to be faithfully fulfilled — to cease the 
agitation of the slave question, and provide for the insertion of 
a provision in the Constitution b}^ an amendment, which will 
restore in substance the power she possessed of protecting her- 
self before the equilibrium between the sections was destroyed 
by the action of this government. There will be no difficulty in 
devising such a provision — one that will protect the South, and 
which at the same time will improve and strengthen the govern- 
ment, instead of impairing or weakening it." 

Mr. Calhoun's position in regard to the necessity 
of amending the Constitution was not generally 
concurred in by the other representatives from the 
Southern States : but most of them, if not all, agreed 
with him, that the South should not be denied an 
equal participation in the acquired territory, and 
that the true policy of the general government was 

A. B., VOL. VI, —8 



114 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

non-interference, or, in other words, that in the for- 
mation of territorial governments, Congress should 
have nothing to do with the question of slavery, 
but leave the people of the States to be formed free 
to act as they chose. Non-intervention being con- 
ceded, the owners of slaves would have the same 
right to go to the territories that others would, and 
to take their slaves with them, just as others could 
their property. In this way the South would have 
an equal chance, as Mr. Calhoun contended she 
ought, in the settlement of the territories. 

The result in Congress was the passage of Mr. 
Clay's proposition, but in a series of bills instead of 
in one measure. 



CHAPTER XII 

Death of Mr. Calhoun. — His Family. — Personal Appearance.— 
Character. — Mental Powers. — Style as Speaker and Writer. 
— Course as a Statesman. — Popularity. 

Faithful to his duty unto the end, Death found 
Mr. Calhoun at his post. Feeble though he was in 
body, to the very close of his earthly pilgrimage he 
was sustained by the wonderful energy and power of 
an intellect that never knew what it was to be de- 
pendent. Like Chatham, wrapped up in flannels, he 
occasionallv crawled to the Senate chamber to take 
his friends by the hand, and to encourage them to 
stand firmly by the rights of the South ; and on the 
13th of March, his voice was heard for the last 
time in debate, no longer clear as a trumpet, but 
often giving way wnth the failure of the powers of 
utterance — quivering from weakness and husky with 
emotion, yet still indicating the unconquerable will 
and determination of his character. It was the tri- 
umph of mind over matter, — of the immortal spirit 
over the frail body that contained it! 

The last words of Mr. Calhoun in the Senate were 
uttered on this occasion, in defence of his proposi- 
tion for the amendment of the Constitution, which 
had been assailed by several senators in the course 
of the discussion. The scene was an exciting one, 
he was nearly overcome, and returned to his private 

115 



Il6 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

room only to die. The slavery question was the 
engrossing subject that occupied his mind. He 
wished to see the Union preserved, but he feared that 
the slaveholding States would be driven to secede. 
His friends were not interdicted from visiting him, 
and he conversed with them freely until it was evi- 
dent that his powers were fast giving way, and that 
his ever-active mind was wearing out the body. At 
intervals he employed himself in writing or in look- 
ing over his papers : this taxed his strength less 
than conversation, yet intense and earnest thoug'ht, 
like the vampire, was constantly draining the life- 
blood from his heart. 

His son, John B. Calhoun, a physician, was with 
hitn for several weeks previous to his death, and 
other friends almost equalled his filial devotion in 
their kind attentions. On the 30th of March, it 
could no longer be doubted that the hours of the 
great statesman would soon be numbered. In the 
morning he was restless and much weaker than he 
had ever before been. He sat up, however, for a 
couple of hours during the day ; and toward even- 
ing, the stimulants which had been employed to 
protract life seemed to have regained their power, 
and he conversed with apparent ease and freedom, 
mainly upon the absorbing topic, the slavery ques- 
tion. About half-past twelve, that night, he com- 
menced breathing very heavily — so much so as to 
alarm his son. The latter inquired how he felt ; he 
replied that he was unusually wakeful, but desired 
his son to lie down. His pulse was then very low, 
and he said he was sinking but he refused to take any 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 11/ 

more stimulants. The son lay down, but in a little 
more than an hour was aroused, by his father call- 
ing in a feeble voice, "John, come to me!" His 
respiration now denoted great physical weakness, 
though it did not appear to be difficult. When his 
son approached him he held out his arm, and re- 
marked that there was no pulsation at the wrist. 

He then directed his son to take his watch and 
papers and put them in his trunk, after which he 
said that the medicine given to restore him had 
had a delightful effect and produced an agreeable 
perspiration. In reply to an inquiry as to how he 
had rested, he stated that he had not rested at all; 
but he assured his son that he felt no pain, and had 
felt none during the whole attack. A little after 
five o'clock in the morning of the 31st, his son asked 
him if he was comfortable. " I am perfectly com- 
fortable," he replied. These were his last words. 

Shortly before six o'clock, he made a sign to his 
son to approach the bed. Extending his hand, he 
grasped that of his son, looked him intently in the 
face, and moved his lips, but was unable to articulate. 
Other friends were now called in, and a fruitless 
effort was made to revive him. Meanwhile he was 
perfectly conscious, and his eyes retained their 
brightness, and his countenance its natural expres- 
sion. But the golden cord was about to be severed 
— and in a few moments he drew a deep inspiration, 
his eyes closed, and his spirit passed, " like the 
anthem of a breeze, away." 

The death of Mr. Calhoun was announced in the 



Il8 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

Senate, in a most impressive manner, by his friend 
and colleague, Judge Butler, on the first of April. 
Eloquent and feeling addresses were also made by 
Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, the great rivals 
of the deceased in talents and in fame. Appropriate 
funeral honors were, of course, paid to his memory 
by the assembled Representatives of the States. The 
sad event was not altogether unexpected ; and it 
elicited, at W^ashington not only, but in every town 
throughout the wide Union, a general and sincere 
expression of regret. Forms and ceremonies may be 
but idle show, yet this was the genuine homage paid 
to departed worth. 

On the 2d day of April, the funeral ceremonies 
were held, and the remains of Mr. Calhoun were 
then conveyed to Charleston, accompanied by a com- 
mittee of the Senate. They found a whole people 
in tears. South Carolina truly mourned her loss ; 
and the citizens of her metropolis, with all the out- 
ward manifestations of mourning — a funeral pro- 
cession, halls and balconies draperied in crape, the 
tolling of bells, muffled drums and plaintive music, 
drooping plumes and shrouded banners — received 
all that was left of him who had constituted the 
chief glory of his native State, and whose greatness, 
like the giant pine of her virgin forests, towered 
far heavenward. 

Mr. Calhoun was married in early life to a cousin 
by the name of Caldwell, who survived him. They 
had three sons: Andrew P. Calhoun, a planter; Pat- 
rick, an officer in the army; and John B.,a physician. 
They had several daughters, also, one of whom 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN II9 

married Thomas G. Clemson, of Pennsylvania, at 
one time charge d'affaires to Belgium. 

No one ever saw Mr. Calhoun for the first time 
without being forcibly impressed with the convic- 
tion of his mental superiority. There was that in 
his air and in his appearance which carried with it 
the assurance that he was no common man. Miss 
Martineau termed him, in her "Travels in America," 
the cast-iron man, " who looked as if he had never 
been born." In person he was tall and slender, and 
his frame appeared gradually to become more and 
more attenuated till he died. His features were 
harsh and angular in their outlines, presenting a 
combination of the Greek and the Roman, A serene 
and almost stony calm was habitual to them when 
in repose, but when enlivened in conversation or de- 
bate, their play was remarkable. 

His countenance, when at rest, indicated abstrac- 
tion or a preoccupied air, and a stranger on ap- 
proaching him could scarcely avoid an emotion of 
fear; yet when he spoke the fire of genius blazed 
from his eye and illumined his expressive features. 
His individuality was stamped upon his acute and 
intelligent face, and the lines of character and 
thought were clearly and strongly defined. His fore- 
head was broad, tolerably high, and compact, denot- 
ing the mass of brain behind it. Until he had passed 
the grand climacteric, he wore his hair short and 
brushed it back, so that it stood erect on the top of 
his head, like bristles on the angry boar, or " quills 
upon the fretful porcupine," but toward the close of 
his life he suffered it to grow long, and to fall in 



I20 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

heavy masses over his temples. His eyes were his 
most striking features : they were dark bkie, large 
and brilliant ; in repose glowing with a steady light, 
in action fairly emitting flashes of fire. 

His character was marked and decided, not pre- 
maturely exhibiting its peculiarities, yet formed and 
perfected at an early age. He was firm and prompt, 
manly and independent. His sentiments were noble 
and elevated, and everything mean or grovelling was 
foreign to his nature. He was easy in his manners, 
and affable and dignified. His attachments were 
warm and enduring; he did not manifest his affec- 
tion with enthusiastic fervor, but with deep earnest- 
ness and sincerity. He was kind, generous and char- 
itable; honest and frank; faithful to his friends, but 
somewhat inclined to be unforgiving toward his en- 
emies. He was attached to his principles and preju- 
dices with equal tenacity; and when he had adopted 
an opinion, so strong was his reliance upon the cor- 
rectness of his own judgment, that he often doubted 
the wisdom and sincerity of those who disagreed 
with him. He never shrank from the performance 
of any duty, however painful it might be, — that it 
was a duty, was sufficient for him. He possessed 
pride of character in no ordinary degree, and, withal, 
not a little vanity, which is said always to accom- 
pany true genius. His devotion to the South was 
not sectional, so much as it was the natural conse- 
quence of his views with reference to the theory of 
the government; and his patriotism, like his fame, 
was coextensive with the Union. 

In private life ^Ir. Calhoun was fitted to be loved 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 12 1 

and respected. Like Jefferson, Madison, Marshall, 
and the younger Adams, he was simple in his habits. 
When at home, he usually rose at daybreak, and, if 
the weather admitted, took a walk over his farm. He 
breakfasted at half -past seven, and then retired to 
his office, which stood near his dwelling house, 
where he wrote till dinner-time, or three o'clock. 
After dinner he read or conversed with his family 
till sunset, when he took anodier walk. His tea 
hour was eight o'clock; he then joined his family 
again, and passed the time in conversation or read- 
ing till ten o'clock, when he retired to rest. His 
social qualities were endearing, and his conversa- 
tional powers fascinating in the extreme. 

In his dress he was very plain, and rarely appeared 
in anything except a simple suit of black. His 
constitution was not naturally robust; but notwith- 
standing the ceaseless labors of his mind, by a strict 
attention to regimen and the avoidance of all stimu- 
lants, his life was prolonged almost to the allotted 
three score and ten. 

He was neither metaphysical nor subtle, in the 
sense in which mere schoolmen use those terms. He 
seemed to have studied the philosophy as well as the 
rules of logic; or, if not that, the faculty of reason- 
ing with accuracy was natural to him. He was capa- 
ble of generalizing and of drawing nice distinctions. 
He was shrewd in argument, and quick to observe 
the weak points of an antagonist. Of dialectics he 
was a complete master, whether synthetically or an- 
alytically considered. But his great power lay in 
analysis. He could resolve a complex argument or 



122 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

an idea into its original parts, with as much facility 
as the most expert mechanic could take a watch to 
pieces; and it was his very exquisiteness in this re- 
spect, that caused him to be regarded by many as 
sophistical and metaphysical. 

He was fond of tracing out the causes which led 
to an effect, and of considering the vast combina- 
tions of circumstances that produced a certain result, 
or what in politics he called a juncture or a crisis. 
In the readiness and rapidity with which he analyzed 
and classified his thoughts, he had no superior, if he 
had an equal, among the public men of his day. 
While at the law school in Litchfield, he accustomed 
himself to arrange the order of his thoughts, before 
taking part in a debate, not upon paper but in his 
mind, and to depend on his memory, which was 
peculiarly retentive. In this manner both his mind 
and memory were strengthened, and the former was 
made to reseml)le a store-house full to overflowing, 
but with everything in its appropriate place and 
ready for any occasion. 

Like his life, Mr. Calhoun's style was simple and 
pure, yet for this very reason often rising to an 
elevation of grandeur and dignity, which elaborate 
finish can never attain. It was modelled after the 
ancient classics, and distinguished for its clearness, 
directness, and energetic earnestness. His words 
were well chosen, and showed severe discipline in 
his early studies ; but he never stopped to pick or cull 
them in the midst of a speech, for at such times his 
ideas seemed to come forth full clothed, like Min- 
erva from the brain of Jupiter. He occasionally 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 1 23 

made use of a startling figure, or an antithetical ex- 
pression, but there was no redundancy of ornament, 
though — if that could be a blemish — there was a 
redundancy of thought. 

He was in the habit of laying down a few simple 
abstract truths, and arguing upon and explaining 
and elucidating them. x\lmost every sentence, there- 
fore, in one of his speeches, was a political text; and 
the arguments and illustrations which he employed to 
establish the correctness of his great principles were 
the clippings of the diamond — scintillations of the 
brilliant thought from which they emanated. 

His speeches, letters, and reports would fill vol- 
umes, yet they are well worthy of collection in a 
permanent form. They contain a vast fund of infor- 
mation with reference to the political history of the 
country, and mines of thought on political science. 
For some years previous to his death he was en- 
gaged on a work in three parts, entitled " The 
Theory of Governments." The first part was com- 
pleted early in 1849, ^^^^ ^^^^ two remaining parts 
were nearly finished at the time of his decease. 

It has been said that he was no orator. It is true 
that he did not cultivate the graces of oratory, but 
he wielded its power with a giant's force. In dis- 
cussing serious questions, he was usually calm 
though impressive ; and when he first rose to speak, 
he almost always bent forward as if from diffidence. 
Rut when fully aroused, he became stern and erect 
in his bearing, his voice rang loud and shrill, and 
his eyes glistened like coals of fire. A steady flow 
of words came from his lips, and sometimes they 



124 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

• 

rushed so rapidly that he seemed obHged to clip them 
off to make room. Intense earnestness characterized 
his delivery, and this is one of the highest attributes 
of true eloquence. In listening to him you felt that 
he was sincere, and it was impossible to look at him 
without being moved. 

He was no mere theorist. He never desired, as 
we have seen in his course in regard to the currency 
and the tariff, to suddenly undo a system of bad 
measures, and adopt an opposite system. He fav- 
ored gradual changes, and this is high evidence of 
the practical character of his mind. 

The theory of this government was for many 
years his study; he was perfectly familiar with our 
foreign relations ; but upon the currency question he 
was especially at home, and he discussed it with 
the sagacity of a philosopher, the foresight of a 
statesman, and the practical skill of a financier. 

Independence and integrity were conspicuous 
traits of ]Mr. Calhoun. " I never know," he said, 
''what South Carolina thinks of a measure. I never 
consult her. I act to the best of my judgment, and 
according to my conscience. If she approves, well 
and good. If she does not, or wishes any one else 
to take my place, I am ready to vacate. We are 
even." He was no friend to progressive democracy, 
nor did he think that liberty and license were syn- 
onymous terms. " People do not understand lib- 
erty or majorities," he remarked. " The will of a 
majority is the will of a rabble. Progressive democ- 
racy is incompatible with liberty. Those who study 
after this fashion are yet in the hornbook, the a, b, c, 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 12 5 

of governments. Democracy is levelling — this is 
inconsistent with true liberty. Anarchy is more 
to be dreaded than despotic power. It is the worst 
tyranny. The best government is that which draws 
least from the people, and is scarcely felt, except 
to execute justice, and to protect the people from 
animal violation of law." 

Possessing such exalted talents, the question may 
be asked, why A^lr. Calhoun did not reach the presi- 
dency ; for his aspirations were often turned in that 
direction, though he would sacrifice no prin- 
ciple to reach that high station. A late writer * has 
enumerated three obstacles — his unconquerable inde- 
pendence, his incorruptible integrity, and the philo- 
sophical sublimity of his genius. That the first two 
contributed to this result is highly probable, but if 
by that other quality is meant an elevation of his 
genius entirely above the comprehension of the mul- 
titude, it is unjust to his character. He possessed 
no such transcendental faculty or attribute. Truth, 
in its simplicity and beauty — as Mr. Calhoun pre- 
sented it — goes home to every heart. He was under- 
stood and appreciated by the masses. He was popular 
with the people but not with the politicians. 

The death of Mr. Calhoun was a loss to the Union, 
but to South Carolina the blow was peculiarly se- 
vere. For more than forty years she had trusted 
and confided in him, and she never found him faith- 
less or remiss in his duty. He had received many 
honors at her hands, but not one was undeserved, 
— she owed him a debt of gratitude which she could 

* Gallery of Illustrious Americans, No. 3. 



126 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

never repay. She has produced many distinguished 
men; yet his memory and fame will be dearer than 
those of her Laurenses, her Gadsdens, her Pinck- 
neys, her Rutledges, or her Haynes. Her soil con- 
tains no nobler dust than that of John Caldwell 
Calhoun. 



" Statesmen, yet friend to truth ! — of soul sincere, 
In action faithful, and in honor clear, 
Who broke no promise, served no private end. 
Who sought no title, and who lost no friend ! " 



BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR 

OF THE PUBLIC LIFE 



OF 



DANIEL WEBSTER 

BY 

EDWARD EVERETT 

ABRIDGED AND EDITED FOR THIS SERIES BY 

JOHN R. HOWARD 



EDITOR'S PREFACE 



The author of this biographical memoir of Daniel 
Webster was one of the noted men of his time. An 
eloquent Unitarian clergyman, Edward Everett was 
sought and served as Professor of Greek Literature 
in Harvard College, was elected ten continuous 
years in Congress, then four years successively as 
Governor of Massachusetts, was United States min- 
ister to England during Mr. Webster's secretary- 
ship of state under Presidents Harrison and Tyler, 
and was the successor of that great man in the State 
Department after W^ebster's death. He was Presi- 
dent of Harvard for three years, then elected United 
State Senator from Massachusetts, but feeble health 
compelled his resignation within a year. He was 
a noted orator, of a polished and elaborate style, and 
much sought after on occasions of literary or politi- 
cal importance. From youth to death he was a 
friend, admirer, and intimate associate of Daniel 
Webster, and therefore his account of the public 
services of the Massachusetts Senator are sure to 
be authentic and to represent matters from Mr. Web- 
ster's point of view — a matter of concern, if we 
would understand a man's words and deeds, and, 
further still, his motives. 

A. B., VOL. VI. — 9 129 



130 editor's preface 

The Memoir is naturally very full in explanation 
of certain disputed matters, which, however signifi- 
cant in their day, have passed out of remembrance. 
It contains many noble passages from Mr. Web- 
ster's speeches, and correspondence throwing light 
upon matters of discussion; it enlarges upon some 
points of importance in solving questions yet in abey- 
ance when the memoir was written — in Mr. Web- 
ster's lifetime, but not now; and in other ways it 
presents matter which has been deemed unnecessary 
to the purposes of this Series, aiming to give au- 
thentic, readable, terse biographies of our greatest 
Americans. Material of that nature, therefore, has 
been eliminated; but the interest and the authority 
of the memoir stands unquestionable, the abridg- 
ment serving merely to relieve it of details no longer 
of concern to the general reader of to-day. 



LIFE OF DANIEL WEBSTER 



CHAPTER I 



Parentage and Birth. — Early Education. — Exeter Academy. — 
Dartmouth College. — Study of the Law. — Fryeburg in Maine. 
— In the Office of Hon. Christopher Gore. — Admission to the 
Bar. — Commencement of Practice. — Removal to Portsmouth. 

The family of Daniel Webster has been estab- 
lished in America from a very early period. It was 
of Scottish origin, but passed some time in England 
before the linal emigration. Thomas Webster, the 
remotest ancestor who can be traced, was settled at 
Hampton, on the coast of New Hampshire, as early 
as 1636, sixteen years after the landing at Plymouth, 
and six years from the arrival of Governor Win- 
throp in Massachusetts Bay. The descent from 
Thomas Webster to Daniel can be traced in the 
church and town records of Hampton, Kingston 
(now East Kingston), and Salisbury. These rec- 
ords and the mouldering headstones of village grave- 
yards are the herald's office of the fathers of New 
England. Noah Webster, the learned author of the 
American Dictionary of the English Language, was 
of a collateral branch of the family. 

Ebenezer Webster, the father of Daniel, is still 
recollected in Kingston and Salisbury. His personal 
appearance was striking. He was erect, of athletic 

131 



132 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

stature, six feet high, broad and full in the chest. 
Long service in the wars had given him a military 
air and carriage. He belonged to that intrepid bor- 
der race, which lined the whole frontier of the 
Anglo-American colonies, by turns farmers, hunts- 
men, and soldiers, and passing their lives in one 
long struggle with the hardships of an infant settle- 
ment, on the skirts of a primeval forest. Ebenezer 
Webster enlisted early in life as a common soldier, 
in one of those formidable companies of rangers, 
which rendered such important services under Sir 
Jeffrey Amherst and Wolfe in the Seven Years' 
War. He followed the former distinguished leader 
in the invasion of Canada, attracted the attention 
and gained the good-will of his superior officers by 
his brave and faithful conduct, and rose to the rank 
of a captain before the end of the war. 

Captain Webster was one of the settlers of the 
newly granted township of Salisbury, and received 
an allotment in its northerly portion. More ad- 
venturous than others of the company, he cut his 
way deeper into the wilderness, and made the path 
he could not find. At this time his nearest civilized 
neighbors on the northwest were at Montreal. 

The following allusion of Mr. Webster to his 
birthplace will be read with interest. It is from 
a speech delivered before a great public assembly at 
Saratoga, in the year ICS40: 

" It did not happen to me to be born in a log cabin ; but 
my elder brothers and sisters were born in a log cabin, raised 
amid the snowdrifts of New Hampshire, at a period so early 
that, when the smoke first rose from its rude chimney, and 



DANIEL WEBSTER t33 

curled over the frozen hills, there was no similar evidence of a 
white man's habitation between it and the settlements on the 
rivers of Canada. Its remains still exist. I make to it an 
annual visit. I carry my children to it to teach them the hard- 
ships endured by the generations which have gone before them. 
I love to dwell on the tender recollections, the kindred ties, the 
early affections, and Ihe touching narratives and incidents, 
which mingle with all I know of this primitive family abode." 

Soon after his settlement in Salisbury, the first 
wife of Ebenezer Webster having- deceased, he mar- 
ried Abigail Eastman, who became the mother of 
Ezekiel and Daniel Webster, the only sons of the 
second marriage. Like the mothers of so many 
men of eminence, she was a woman of more than 
ordinary intellect, and possessed a force of character 
which was felt throughout the humble circle in which 
she moved. 

About the time of his second marriage. Captain 
Ebenezer Webster erected a frame house hard by the 
log cabin. He dug a well near it and planted an elm 
sapling. In this house Daniel Webster was born, 
in the last year of the Revolutionary war, on the 
1 8th of January, 1782. 

The interval between the peace of 1763 and the 
breaking out of the war of the Revolution was one 
of excitement and anxiety throughout the Colonies. 
Like so many of the officers and soldiers of the 
former war. Captain Webster obeyed the first call 
to arms in the new struggle. He commanded a com- 
pany, chieiiy composed of his own townspeople, 
friends, and kindred, who followed him through 
the greater portion of the war. He was at the battle 
of White Plains, and was at West Point when the 



134 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

treason of Arnold was discovered. He acted as a 
Major under Stark at Bennington, and contributed 
his share to the success of that eventful day. 

If the character and situation of the place, and 
the circumstances under which Daniel Webster 
passed the first years of his life, might seem adverse 
to the early cultivation of his extraordinary talent, 
it still cannot be doubted that they possessed influ- 
ences favorable to elevation and strength of char- 
acter. The hardships of an infant settlement and 
border life, the traditions of a long series of Indian 
wars, and incidents of two mighty national contests, 
in which an honored parent had borne his part, were 
circumstances to leave an abiding impression on the 
mind of a thoughtful child, and induce an early 
maturity of character. 

It may well be supposed that Mr. Webster's early 
opportunities for education were very scanty. Some- 
thing that was called a school was kept for two 
or three months in the winter, frefpiently by an 
itinerant, too often a pretender, claiming only to 
teach a little reading, writing, and ciphering, and 
wholly incompetent to give any valuable assistance 
to a clever youth in learning either. 

From the village library at .Salisbury, also, Mr. 
Webster was able to obtain a moderate supply of 
good reading. 

The year before Mr. Webster was born was ren- 
dered memorable in New Hampshire by the founda- 
tion of the Acadmey at Exeter, through the munifi- 
cence of the Honorable John Phillips. To this 
Academy Mr. Webster was taken by his father in 



DANIEL WEBSTER 135 

May, 1796. He enjoyed the advantage of only a 
few months' instruction in this excellent school ; 
but, short as the period was, his mind appears to 
have received an impulse of a most genial and 
(luickening character. The following anecdote from 
Air. March's " Reminiscences of Congress " will 
not be thought out of place in this connection : — 

" It may appear somewhat singular that the greatest orator of 
modern times should have evinced in his boyhood the strongest 
antipathy to public declamation. This fact, however, is estab- 
lished by his own words, which have recently appeared in print. 
' I believe,' says Mr. Webster, ' I made tolerable progress in 
most branches which I attended to while in this school ; but 
there was one thing I could not do. I could not make a decla- 
mation. I could not speak before the school. The kmd and 
excellent Buckminster sought especially to persuade me to per- 
form the exercise of declamation, like other boys, but I could 
not do it. Many a piece did I commit to memory, and recite 
and rehearse in my own room, over and over again ; yet when 
the day came, when the school collected to hear declamations, 
when my name was called, and I saw all eyes turned to my seat, 
I could not raise myself from it. Sometimes the instructors 
frowned, sometimes they smiled. Mr. Buckminster always 
pressed and entreated, most winningly, that I would venture. 
But I never could command sufficient resolution.' Such diffi- 
dence of its own powers may be natural to genius, nervously 
fearful of being unable to reach that ideal which it proposes as 
the only full consummation of its wishes. It is fortunate, how- 
ever, for the age, fortunate for all ages, that Mr. Webster by 
determined will and freq.uent trial overcame this moral in- 
capacity, as his great prototype, the Grecian orator, subdued his 
physical defect." — pp. 12, 13. 

After a few months well spent at Exeter, Mr. 
Webster returned home, and in February, 1797, was 
placed by his father under the Rev. Samuel Wood, 
the minister of the neighboring town of Boscawen. 



136 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

He lived In Mr. Wood's family, and for board and in- 
struction the entire charge was one dollar per week. 

On their way to Mr. Wood's, Mr. Webster's 
father first opened to his son, now fifteen years old, 
the design of sending him to college, the thought 
of which had never before entered his mind. " I 
remember," says Mr. W^ebster, in an autobiographi- 
cal memorandum of his boyhood, " the very hill 
which we were ascending, through deep snows, in 
a New England sleigh, when my father made known 
this purpose to me. I could not speak. How could 
he, I thought, with so large a family and in such nar- 
row circumstances, think of incurring so great an 
expense for me. A warm glow ran all over me, and 
I laid my head on my father's shoulder and wept." 

From February till August, 1797, Mr. Webster 
remained under the instruction of Mr. Wood, at 
Boscawen, and completed his preparation for col- 
lege. It is hardly necessary to say, that the prepara- 
tion was imperfect. Short as was his period 
of preparation, however, it enabled Mr. Web- 
ster to la}^ the foundation of a knowledge of the 
classical writers, especially the Latin, which was 
greatly increased in college, and which was kept 
up by constant recurrence to the great models of 
antiquity, during the busiest periods of active life. 
The happiness of Mr. Webster's occasional cita- 
tions from the Latin classics was a striking feature 
of his oratory. 

Mr. Webster entered Dartmouth College in 1797, 
and passed the four academic years in assiduous 
study. He was not only distinguished for his at- 



Daniel Webster 137 

tention to the prescribed studies, but devoted liim- 
self to general reading, especially to English history 
and literature. He took part in the publication of 
a little weekly newspaper, furnishing selections from 
books and magazines, with an occasional article 
from his own pen. He delivered addresses, also, 
before the college societies, some of which were 
published. In the winter vacations he taught school. 

Mr. Webster completed his college course in Au- 
gust, 1 80 1, and immediately entered the office of 
Mr. Thompson, the next-door neighbor of his father, 
as a student of law, where he remained until appli- 
cation was made to him to take charge of an acad- 
emy at Fryeburg in Maine, upon a salary of about 
one dollar per diem, being less than is now paid for 
the coarsest kind of unskilled manual labor. As he 
was able, besides, to earn enough to pay for his board 
and to defray his other expenses by acting as assist- 
ant to the register of deeds for the county, his sal- 
ary was all saved, — a fund for his own professional 
education and to help his brother through college. 

In vSeptember, 1802, Mr. Webster returned to 
Salisbury, and resumed his studies under Mr. 
Thompson, in whose office he remained for eighteen 
months. Besides his law studies, he gave a good 
deal of time to general reading, and especially the 
study of the Latin classics, English history, and the 
volumes of Shakespeare. In order to obtain a 
wider compass of knowledge, and to learn some- 
thing of the language not to be gained from the 
classics, he read through attentively Puffendorff's 
'' Latin History of England." 



138 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

In July, 1804, he took up his residence in Boston, 
and enjoyed the advantage of pursuing his legal 
studies for six or eight months in the office of the 
Hon. Christopher Gore, afterwards Governor of 
Massachusetts, a lawyer of eminence, a statesman 
and a civilian, a gentleman of the old school of 
manners, and a rare example of distinguished intel- 
lectual qualities, united with practical good sense 
and judgment. He had passed several years in Eng- 
land as a commissioner, under Jay's treaty, for liqui- 
dating the claims of citizens of the United States 
for seizures by British cruisers in the early wars of 
the French Revolution. His library, amply fur- 
nished with works of professional and general lit- 
erature, his large experience of men and things at 
home and abroad, and his uncommon amenity of 
temper, combined to make the period passed by Mr. 
Webster in his office one of the pleasantest in his 
life. These advantages, it hardly need be said, were 
not thrown away. 

Just as he was about to be admitted to practise 
in the Suffolk Court of Common Pleas in Massa- 
chusetts, the place of clerk in the Court of Com- 
mon Pleas for the county of Hillsborough, in New 
Hampshire, became vacant. Of this court Mr. Web- 
ster's father had been made one of the judges, in 
conformity with a very common practice at that 
time, of placing on the side bench of the lower courts 
men of intelligence and respectaJjility, though not 
lawyers. From regard to Judge Webster, the va- 
cant clerkship was offered by his colleagues to his 
son. The fees of the office were about fifteen hun- 



\ 



DANIEL WEBSTER 1 39 

dred dollars per annum, which in those days and in 
that region was not so much a competence as a for- 
tune. Mr. Webster himself was disposed to accept 
the office. It promised an immediate provision in 
lieu of a distant and doubtful prospect. It enabled 
him at once to bring comfort into his father's 
family. But the earnest dissuasions of Mr. Gore, 
who saw in this step the certain postponement, per- 
haps the final defeat, of all hopes of professional ad- 
vancement, prevented his accepting the office. In 
the spring of the same year (1805) Mr. Webster 
was admitted to the practice of the law in the Court 
of Common Pleas for Suffolk County, Boston. 

Immediately on his admission to the bar, Mr. 
Webster went to Amherst, in New Hampshire, 
where his father's court was in session ; from that 
place he went home with his father, who was now 
infirm from the advance of years, and had no other 
son at home. Under these circumstances Mr. Web- 
ster opened an office at Boscawen, not far from his 
father's residence, and commenced the practice of 
the law in this retired spot. Judge Webster lived 
but a year; long enough, however, to hear his son's 
first argument in court, and to be gratified with the 
confident predictions of his future success. 

In May, 1807, Mr. Webster was admitted as an 
attorney and counsellor of the Superior Court in 
New Hampshire, and in September of that year, 
relinquishing his office in Boscawen to his brother 
Ezekiel, he removed to Portsmouth, in conformitv 
with his original intention. Here he remained in 
the practice of his profession for nine successive 



I40 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

years. They were years of assiduous labor, and of 
unremitted devotion to the study and practice of the 
law. He was associated with several persons of 
great eminence, citizens of New Hampshire or of 
Massachusetts occasionally practising at the Ports- 
mouth bar. Among the latter were Samuel Dexter 
and Joseph Story; of the residents of New Hamp- 
shire, Jeremiah Mason ^vas the most distinguished. 
Often opposed to each other as lawyers, a strong 
personal friendship grew up between them, which 
ended only with the death of Mr. Mason. 

Although dividing with Mr. Mason the best of the 
business of Portsmouth, and indeed of all the eastern 
portion of the State, Mr. Webster's practice was 
mostly on the circuit. He followed the Superior 
Court through the principal counties of the State, 
and was retained in nearly every important cause. 
It is a somewhat singular fact in his professional 
life, that, with the exception of the occasions on 
which lie has been associated wijth the Attorney- 
General of the United States for the time being, 
he has hardly appeared ten times as junior counsel. 
Within the sphere in which he was placed, he may 
be said to have risen at once to the head of his pro- 
fession ; not, however, like Erskine and some other 
celebrated British lawyers, by one and the same 
bound, at once to fame and fortune. Mr. Web- 
ster's practice in New Hampshire, though probably 
as good as that of any of his contemporaries, -was 
never lucrative. Although exclusively devoted to his 
profession, it afforded him no more than a bare 
livelihood, 



CHAPTER II 

Public Life. — Election to Congress. — Extra Session of 1813. — 
Foreign Relations. — Berlin and Milan Decrees. — Naval De- 
fence. — Reelected to Congress in 1814. — Peace with England. 
— National Bank. — Battle of New Orleans. — New Questions. 
— The Tariff Policy. — Specie Payments. — Removal to Boston. 

Mr. Webster had hitherto taken less interest in 
pohtics than has been usual with the young men of 
talent, at least with the young lawyers of America. 
In fact, at the time to which the preceding narrative 
refers, the politics of the country were in such a 
state, that there was scarce any course which could 
be pursued with entire satisfaction by a patriotic 
young man sagacious enough to penetrate behind 
mere party names, and to view public questions in 
their true light. The United States, although not 
actually drawn to any great depth into the vortex 
of the French Revolution, were powerfully affected 
by it. The deadly struggle of the two great Euro- 
pean belligerents, in which the neutral rights of this 
country were grossly violated by both, gave a com- 
plexion to our domestic politics. 

The aggressions of the belligerents on our neutral 
commerce continued, and, by the joint effect of the 
Berlin and Milan Decrees and the Orders in Council, 
it was all but swept from the ocean. In this state 
of things two courses were open to the United 

141 



142 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

States, as a growing neutral power : one, that of 
prompt resistance to the aggressive poHcy of the 
belhgerents ; the other, that which was caHed " the 
restrictive system," which consisted in an embargo 
on our own vessels, with a view tn withdraw them 
from the grasp of foreign cruisers, and in laws 
inhibiting commercial interccnirse with England and 
France. There was a division of opinion in the 
cabinet of Mr. Jefferson and in the country at large. 
The latter policy was finally adopted. It fell in with 
the general views of Mr. Jefferson against com- 
mitting the country to the risks of foreign war. 

Although the discipline of party was sufficiently 
strong to cause this system of measures to be adopted 
and pursued for years, it was never cordially ap- 
proved by the people of the United States of any 
party. It continued, however, to form the l)asis of 
our parly divisions till the war of 181 _'. In these 
divisions, as has been intimated, both parties were 
in a false position ; the one supporting and forcing 
upon the country a system of measures not cordially 
approved, e\en by themselves ; the other, a power- 
less minority, zealously opposing those measures, 
but liable for that reason to be thought backward 
in asserting the neutral rights of the country. A 
few men of well-balanced minds, true patriotism, 
and sound statesmanship, in all sections of the coun- 
try, were able to unite fidelity to their party associa- 
tions with a comprehensive view to the good of 
the country. Among these, mature beyond his years, 
was Mr. Webster. As early as 1806 he had, in a 
public oration, presented an impartial view of the 



DANIEL WEBSTER I43 

foreign relations of the country in reference to 
both belhgerents, of the importance of our commer- 
cial interests and the duty of protecting them. 

At length the foreign belligerents themselves per- 
ceived the folly and injustice of their measures. In 
the strife which should inflict the greatest injury 
on the other, they had paralyzed the commerce of 
the world and embittered the minds of all the neu- 
tral powers. The Berlin and Milan Decrees were 
revoked, but in a manner so unsatisfactory as in a 
great degree to impair the pacific tendency of the 
measure. The Orders in Council were also re- 
scinded in the summer of 181 2. War, however, 
justly provoked by each and both of the parties, 
had meantime been declared by Congress against 
England, and active hostilities had been commenced 
on the frontier. At the elections next ensuing, Mr. 
Webster was brought forward as a candidate for 
Congress of the Federal party of that day, and, hav- 
ing been chosen in the month of November, 181 2, 
he took his seat at the first session of the Thirteenth 
Congress, which was an extra session called in May, 
1813. Although his course of life hitherto had been 
in what may be called a provincial sphere, and he had 
never been a member even of the legislature of his 
native State, a presentiment of his ability seems to 
have gone before him to Washington. He was, in 
the organization of the House, placed by Mr. Clay, 
its Speaker, upon the Committee of Foreign Affairs, 
a select committee at that time, and of necessity 
the leading committee in a state of war. • 

There were many men of uncommon ability in the 



144 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

Thirteenth Congress. Rarely has so much talent 
been found at any one time in the House of Repre- 
sentatives. Although among the youngest and least 
experienced members of the body, Mr. Webster rose, 
from the first, to a position of undisputed equality 
with the most distinguished. The times were criti- 
cal. The immediate business to l)e attended to was 
the financial and military conduct of the war, a sub- 
ject of difficulty and importance. The position of 
Mr. Webster was not such as to require or permit 
him to take a lead; but it was his steady aim, with- 
out the sacrifice of his principles, to pursue such a 
course as would tend most effectually to extricate 
the country from the embarrassments of her present 
position, and t<j lead to peace upon honorable terms. 

Mr. Webster was not a member of Conc^ress when 
war was declared, nor in any other pul)lic station. 
He was too deeply read in the law (^f nations, and 
regarded that august code with too much respect, 
not to contemplate with indignation its infraction 
by both the belligerents. 

Early in the session, he moved a series of resolu- 
tions of incjuiry, relative to the repeal of the Berlin 
and ]\Iilan Decrees. The object of these resolutions 
was to elicit a communication on this subject from 
the executive, which would unfold the proximate 
causes of the war, as far as they were to be sought 
in those famous Decrees, and in the Orders in Coun- 
cil. On the roth of June, 1813, Mr. Webster deliv- 
ered his maiden speech on these resolutions. No 
full report of this speech has been preserved. It is 
known only from extremely imperfect sketches, con- 



il 



DANIEL WEBSTER I45 

tained in the contemporaneous newspaper accounts 
of the proceedings of Congress, from the recollec- 
tion of those who heard it, and from the general tra- 
dition. It was marked by all the characteristics 
of Mr. Webster's maturest parliamentary efforts, — • 
moderation of tone, precision of statement, force of 
reasoning, absence of ambitious rhetoric and high- 
flown language, occasional bursts of true eloquence, 
and, pervading the whole, a genuine and fervid 
patriotism. We have reason to believe that its effect 
upon the House is accurately described in the follow- 
ing extract from Mr. March's work : 

" The speech took the House by surprise, not so much from 
its eloquence as from the vast amour,t of historical knowledge 
and illustrative ability displayed in it. How a person, un- 
trained to forensic contests and unused to public affairs, could 
exhibit so much parliamentary tact, such nice appreciation of 
the difficulties of a difficult question, and such quiet facility in 
surmounting them, puzzled the mind. The age and inexperience 
of the speaker had prepared the House for no such display, and 
astonishment for a time subdued the expression of its 
admiration." — pp. 35, 36. 

The resolutions moved by Mr. Webster prevailed 
by a large majority, and drew forth from Mr. Mon- 
roe, then Secretary of State, an elaborate and in- 
structive report upon the subject to which they 
referred. 

We have already observed, that, as early as 1806, 
Mr. Webster had expressed himself in favor of 
the protection of our commerce against the aggres- 
sions of both the belligerents. Some years later, 
before the war was declared, but when it was visibly 

A, B., VOL. VI. — 10 



146 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

impending, he had put forth some vigorous articles 
to the same effect. In an oration dehvered in 181 2. 
he had said ; " A navv sufficient for the defence 
of our coasts and iiarbors, for tlie convoy of impor- 
tant l)ranclies of ^ur trade, and sufficient also to 
give our enemies to luiderstand, when they injure 
us. that they too are vuhierable, and that we have 
the power of retaliation as well as of defence, seems 
to be the plain, necessary, indispensal)le policy of 
the nation. It is the dictate of nature and common 
sense, that means of defence shall have relation to 
the danger." 

The principal subjects on which Mr. Webster 
addressed the House during the Thirteenth Congress 
were his own resolutions, the increase of the navy, 
the rei)eal of the embargo, and an ai)peal from the de- 
cision of the chair on a motion for the i)revious 
(|uestion. His speeches un those (piestions raised 
him to the front rank of debaters. He manifested 
upon his entrance into public life that variety of 
knowledge, familiarity with the history and tradi- 
tions of the government, and self-possession on the 
floor, which in most cases are accpiired by time and 
long experience. They gained for him the reputa- 
tion indicated bv the well-known remark of Mr. 
Lowndes, that " the North had not his equal, nor 
the South his superior." It was not the least con- 
spicuous of the strongly marked qualities of his 
character as a public man, disclosed at this early 
period, and uniformly preserved throughout his 
career, that, at a time when party spirit went to great 
lengths, he never permitted himself to be infected 



DANIEL WEBSTER 147 

with its contagion. His opinions were firmly main- 
tained and boldy expressed ; but without bitterness 
toward those who differed from him. He cultivated 
friendly relations on both sides of the House, and 
gained the personal respect even of those with whom 
he most differed. 

In August, 1 8 14, Mr. Webster was reelected to 
Congress. The treaty of Ghent was signed in De- 
cember, 1814, and the prospect of peace, universally 
welcomed by the country, opened on the Thirteenth 
Congress toward the close of its third session. Ear- 
lier in the session a project for a Bank of the United 
States was introduced into the House of Representa- 
tives on the recommendation of Mr. Dallas, Secre- 
tary of the Treasury. The charter of the first in- 
corporated bank of the United States had expired 
in 181 1. No general complaints of mismanage- 
ment or abuse had been raised against this institu- 
tion ; but the opinions entertained by what has been 
called the '' Virginia School " of politicians, against 
the constitutionality of a national bank, prevented 
the renewal of the charter. The want of such an 
institution was severely felt in die war of 181 2, al- 
though it is probable that the amount of assistance 
which it could have afforded the financial opera- 
tions of the government was greatly overrated. 
Be this as it may, both the Treasury Department and 
Congress were now strongly disposed to create a 
bank. Its capital was to consist of forty-five mil- 
lions of the public stocks and five millions of specie, 
and it was to be under obligation to lend the gov- 
ernment thirty millions of dollars on demand. To 



148 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

enable it to exist under these conditions, it was re- 
lieved from the necessity of redeeming its notes in 
specie. In other words, it was an arrangement for 
the issue of an irredeemable paper currency. It was 
opposed mainly on this ground by Mr. Calhoun, 
Mr. Webster. Mr. Lowndes, and others of the ablest 
men on both sides of the House, as a project 
not only unsound in its principles, but sure to in- 
crease the derangement of the currency already 
existing. The pn\iect was supported as an admin- 
istration measure, but the leading meml>ers fmm 
South Carolina and their friends united with the 
regular opposition against it, and it was lost by 
the casting vote of the Speaker. Mr. Cheves. It 
was revived by reconsideration, on motion of Mr. 
Webster, and such amendments introduced that 
it passed the House by a large majority. It was 
carried through the Senate in this amended form 
with difficulty, but it was negatived by Mr. Madi- 
son, being one of the two cases in which he exer- 
cised the veto power during his eight years' admin- 
istration. 

On the 8th of January of the year 181 5. the vic- 
tory at Xew Orleans was gainerl by General Jack- 
son. Xo occurrence on land, in the course of the 
war. was of equal immediate interest, or destined 
to have so abiding an influence on the future. Be- 
sides averting the indescribable calamity of the sack 
of a populous and flourishing city, it showed the 
immense military power of the volunteer force of 
the country, when commanded with energy and 
skill. The praises of General Jackson were on every 



DANIEL WEBSTER 1 49 

tongue throughout the land, and Congress responded 
to the grateful feelings of the countn^ A vote of 
thanks was unanimously passed by the Senate and 
House of Representatives. 

In the interval between the Thirteenth and Four- 
teenth Congresses (March-December, 1815), ]Mr. 
Webster was busily engaged at home in the practice 
of the law. He had begun at this time to consider 
the expediency of removing his residence to a wider 
professional field. Though receiving a full share 
of the best business of Xew Hampshire, it ceased 
to yield an adequate support for his increasing fam- 
ily, and still more failed to afford any thing like 
the just reward of his legal attainment and labors. 
The destruction of his house, furniture, library, and 
many important manuscript collections, in " the 
great fire'' at Portsmouth, in December, 1813. had 
entailed upon him the loss of the entire fruits of his 
professional industry up to that time, and made it 
necessary for him to look around him for the means 
of a considerably increased income. He hesitated 
between Albany and Boston ; and. in consequence 
of this indecision, the execution of his purpose was 
for the present postponed. 

The Fourteenth Congress assembled in December, 
181 5, An order of things in a great degree new 
presented itself. After a momentary pause, the 
country rose with an elastic bound from the pressure 
of the war. Old party dissensions had lost much 
of their interest. The condition of Europe had 
undergone a great change. The power of the French 
emperor was annihilated; and with the return of 



150 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

general peace, all occasions for belligerent encroach- 
ments on neutral rights had ceased. Two-thirds of 
our domestic feuds had turned on foreign questions, 
and there was a spontaneous feeling throughout 
the country in fa\'or of healing the wounds which 
these feuds had inflicted upon its social and political 
harmony. Nor was this all. New relations and in- 
terests had arisen. The public debt had been swelled 
by the war expenditure to a large amount, and its 
interest was to be paid. Domestic manufactures 
had, in some of the States, grown up into import- 
ance through the operation of the restrictive system 
and the war, and asked for protection. The West 
began to fill up with unexampled rapidity, and re- 
quired new facilities of communication with the 
Atlantic coast. The navy had fought itself into 
favor, and the war with Algiers, in 1816, forbade 
its reduction below the recent war establishment. 
The necessity of a system of coast defences had 
made itself felt. With all these loud calls for in- 
creased expenditure, the public finances were em- 
barrassed and the currency was in extreme disorder. 
In a word, there were new and great wants and in- 
terests at home and abroad, throwing former topics 
of dissension into the shade, and calling for the high- 
est efforts of statesmanship and a patriotism embrac- 
ing the whole country. 

Among those who responded with the greatest 
cordiality and promptness to the new demand were 
the distinguished statesmen of the preceding Con- 
gress, and conspicuous among them Clay, Calhoun, 
Webster, Lowndes, and Cheves. It will excite some 



DANIEL WEBSTER I5[ 

surprise at the present day, in consideration of the 
poHticai history of the last thirty years, to find how 
Httle difference as to leading measures existed in 
1816 between these distinguished statesmen. No line 
of general party difference separated the members 
of the (irst Congress after the peace. The great 
measures brought forward were a national bank, 
internal improvement, and a protective tariff. On 
these various subjects members divided, not in ac- 
cordance with any party organization, but from in- 
dividual convictions, supposed sectional interests, 
and general public grounds. On the two first-named 
subjects no systematic difference of views disclosed 
itself between the great Northern and Southern 
leaders ; on the third alone there was diversity of 
opinion. In the Northern States considerable ad- 
vances had been made in manufacturing industry, 
in different places, especially at Waltham (Mass.) : 
but a great manufacturing interest had not yet 
grown up. The strength of this interest as yet lay 
mainly m Pennsylvania. Navigation and foreign 
trade were the leading pursuits of the North ; and 
these interests, it was feared, would suffer from 
the attempt to build up manufactures by a protective 
tariff*. It is accordingly a well-known fact, which 
may teach all to entertain opinions on public ques- 
tions with some distrust of their own judgment, 
that the tariff of 1816, containing the minimum duty 
on coarse cotton fabrics, the corner-stone of the pro- 
tective system, was supported by Mr. Calhoun and 
a few other Southern members, and carried by their 
influence against the opposition of the New Eng- 



::- a^!T7-::an biography 

lar.. -i — -— ---i rencr2_lv. indue: r:^ .-^r. Wcbsttr. It 

has Liz^:^ ~^:ed- ih^.:. dnrii^ the pendency of this 

*T-:-e C.n^ess. he dexned die consdtntioo- 

e Z2,r^ for procecdoiL This statement is 

: 1..J- -jgh, had it been tme. it would have 

plar»r " - 1 y in die sam^ relation to the question 

w. r. Calhijan and ocher S ond ieiu members, who 

at diat time admitted the princ i ple of protection, bat 

lived -ject it as the grossest and most pernicious 

oxisn;.:: -al heresr. It would have shown onlv 
in a kM^ political career, he had. on the first 
disci: of a new question, cxpresfed an opinion 

which. e lapse of time and nnder a change of 

ci rcuni - es. he had seen occasion :er. This 

is no grrjond of just reproach. It has happened to 
every public man in every free coontry. who has been 
of importance enough to have his early opinions 



At a later period, and after :: r.i : :'r^-. : r.r ftr.:'v 
stated- and satisfactorily - y Mr. Mi::r:n. 

that the Federal Con it framed the Con- 

sdtntion intended, one :on for regul ^ 

conBDercc. to cloche Congress with die pov/er of 
laying duties for the procectk>n of manof actures . 
and after Congress had, by repeated laws passed 
aaarnst the widies of the navigating and stricdy 
cooMDeirial interests, practically settled this consti- 
tntional qnestioii, and tomed a vast amoimt of the 
capftal of die coonrrv into the channd of manufac- 
tm-es. Mr. Webster considered a moderate degree 
of protection as the established policy of the United 
States and he accordii^;!^ supported iL It is tin- 



DANTEl .12 .71: 1-5 

necessanr to state, that this coarse wa? tmrsncd with 
the approbaticm of his coostitce" li. „ . _ :o the mani- 
fest g^xxl of the coantnr. X~ r^-"^ t->ok "^':=<:« 
in Mr. Webster's c^inions on i^c - : - - :: : : : : :rc- 
tion which was not ge nerally shz-e \ 1 sdncsioaed 
by the inteUigeace of :' annfs : : - r ^Tates. 

Mr. Wdjster toc4^ an aafve £: t— t :an. ai 
±e nrsi session of : e ??arteenth C ress. in the 
debates on the d : : die E .e United 

States, which pas5c^ J : rress in April, 1816 But 
the great service rencered by h ::: : the r. "f ry 
of the country in the Fotirtee-: >. ctc^s v. ^s :n 

procuring the adoption of the specie re ' : 
\-irtue of which, from and after the j:tii oi re 
ar}-, 1817, ail dd)ts due to the treasiir\- were rr 
to be paid in the legal currency of the tr\- 1 ^ 

or silver), in treasury notes, or : . :e> ^t' :.r 
Bank of the United States, ■' - :r^ .: . ts 
which are pa\-able and paid on ^ r--- ,,;^--^ in the same 
l^al currency. This 'evolution passed the two 
houses, and was approved by the Pr^ident oa the 
30th of April, 1 81 6. It OMnpletely accon^lished its 
object: and that object was to restore to a sound 
basis the currency of the coimtrv, and to srive the 
people a uniform circulating medium. Of this they 
were destitute at the dose of the war. All the banks, 
except those of the Xew England States, had sus- 
pended sf>ecie pa\Tiients: but their depreciated bills 
were f>emiitted by general consent, and within cer- 
tain limits. tH.-> circulate as money. 7 tey were re- 
ceived of each other by the dinereni Mnks: they 
passed from hand to hand : and eveji the public rev- 



154 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

enue was collected at par in this degraded paper: 
The rate of depreciation was different in different 
States, and with dift'erent banks in the same States, 
according as greater or less advantage had been 
taken of the snspension of the specie obligation. 

What was not less harassing than this diversity 
was the uncertainty everywhere prevailing, how far 
the reputed rate of depreciation in any i)articular 
case might represent justly the real condition of a 
bank or set of banks. In other words, men were 
obliged to make and receive payments in a currency 
of which, at the time, the value was not certainly 
known to them, and which might vary as it was 
passing through their hands. The enormous injus- 
tice suffered by the citizens of different States, in 
being obliged to pay their dues at the custom-hotises 
in as manv different currencies as there were States, 
varying at least twenty-live per cent, between Boston 
and Richmond, need not be pointed out. For all 
these mischiefs the resolution of Mr. Webster af- 
forded a remedy as efficient as simple ; and what 
chiefly moves our astonishment at the present day is, 
that a measure of this kind, demanded by the first 
principles of finance, overlooked by the executive 
and its leading friends in Congress, should be left 
to be brought forward by one of its youngest mem- 
bers, and he not belonging to the supporters of the 
administration. 

In all the other public measures brought forward 
in this Congress for meeting the new conditions of 
the country, Mr. \A'ebster bore an active part, but 
they furnish no topic requiring illustration. At the 



DANIEL WEBSTER 1 55 

close of the first session, in August, 1816, he re- 
moved his domestic and professional headquarters 
to Boston. He had established friendly relations 
here at an early period of life. In no part of the 
Union was his national reputation more cordially 
recognized than in the metropolis of New England. 
He took at once the place in his profession which 
belonged to his commanding talent and legal emi- 
nence, and was welcomed into every circle of social 
life. 



CHAPTER III 

Constitutional Law. — Dartmouth College Case. — Case Oi Gib- 
bons and Ogden. — The Case of Rhode Island. — Mr. Web- 
ster's Practice in the U. S. Supreme Court and the State 
Courts. — Criminal Cases. 

With Mr. Webster's removal to Boston com- 
menced a period of five or six years' retirement 
from active political life, during which time, with 
a single exception which will be hereafter alluded 
to, he filled no public office, and devoted himself 
exclusively to the duties of his profession. It was 
accordingly within this period that his reputation as 
a lawyer was fixed and established. The promise 
of his youth, and the expectations of those who had 
known him as a student, w^ere more than fulfilled. 
He took a position as a counsellor and an advocate, 
above which no one has ever risen in the country. 
A large share of the best business of New England 
passed into his hands ; and the veterans of the Boston 
bar admitted him to an entire equality of standing, 
repute, and influence. 

Besides the reputation which he acquired in the or- 
dinary routine of practice, Mr. Webster, shortly after 
his removal to Boston, took the lead in establishing 
what might almost be called a new school of consti- 
tutional law. It fell to his lot to perform a prom- 
inent part in unfolding a most important class of 

156 



DANIEL WEBSTER 157 

constitutional doctrines, which, either because occa- 
sion had not drawn them forth, or the jurists of a 
former period had failed to deduce and apply them, 
had not yet grown into a system. 

In the months of June and December, 1816, the 
legislature of New Hampshire passed acts altering 
the charter of Dartmouth College (of which the 
name was changed to Dartmouth University), en- 
larging the number of trustees, and generally reor- 
ganizing the corporation. These acts, although 
passed without the consent and against the protests 
of the Trustees of the College, went into operation. 
The newly created body took possession of the cor- 
porate property, and assumed the administration of 
the institution. The old board were all named as 
members of the new corporation, but declined act- 
ing as such, and brought an action against the treas- 
urer of the new board for the books of record, the 
original charter, the common seal, and other corpor- 
ate property of the College. 

The action was commenced in the Court of Com- 
mon Pleas for Grafton County, in February, 181 7, 
and carried immediately to the Superior Court, in 
May of the same year. At the November term it 
was decided by the Superior Court of New Hamp- 
shire, in an opinion delivered by Chief Justice Rich- 
ardson, that the acts of the New Hampshire legisla- 
ture were valid and constitutional. 

The case thus decided in the Superior Court of 
New Hampshire in favor of the validity of the State 
laws, was carried by writ of error to the Supreme 
Court of the United States, where, on the loth of 



158 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

March, 181 8, it came on for argument before all 
the judges, Mr. Webster and Mr, (afterwards 
Judge) Hopkinson for the plaintiffs, and Mr. J. 
Holmes of Maine and the Attorney-General, Wirt, 
for the defendants in error. 

It devolved upon Mr. Webster, as junior counsel, 
to open the case. The ground was broadly taken, 
that the acts in question were not only against com- 
mon right and the constitution of New Hampshire, 
but also, and this was the leading principle, against 
the provision of the Constitution of the United 
States which forbids the individual States from pass- 
ing laws that impair the obligation of contracts. 
Under the first head, the entire English law relative 
to educational foundations was unfolded by Mr. 
Webster, and it was shown that colleges, unless 
otherwise specifically constituted by their charters, 
were private eleemosynary corporations, over whose 
property, members, and franchises the crown has 
no control, except by due process of \d.w, for acts 
inconsistent with their charters. The whole learn- 
ing of the subject was brought to bear with over- 
whelming weight on this point. 

The second main point required to be less elabor- 
ately argued ; namely, that such a charter is a con- 
tract which it is not competent for a State to annul. 
The argument throughout was pursued with a close- 
ness and vigor which have been rarely witnessed 
in our courts. The topics were beyond the usual 
range of forensic investigation in this country. The 
constitutional principles sought to be applied were 
of commanding importance. The personal connec- 



DANIEL WEBSTER 1 59 

tion of Mr. Webster with Dartmouth College as the 
place of his education gave a fervor to his manner, 
which added, no doubt, to the effect of the reason- 
ing. On this point Mr. Ticknor expresses himself 
as follows : — 

" Mr. Webster's argument is given in this volume [the first 
collection of his works], that is, we have there the technical 
outline ; the dry skeleton of it. But those who heard him when 
it was originally delivered still wonder how such dry bones 
could ever have lived with the power they there witnessed and 
felt. He opened his cause, as he always does, with perfect sim- 
plicity in the general statement of its facts, and then went on to 
unfold the topics of his argument in a lucid order, which made 
each position sustain every other. The logic and the law were 
rendered irresistible. But as he advanced, his heart warmed to 
the subject and the occasion. Thoughts and feelings that had 
grown old with his best affections rose unbidden to his lips. 
He remembered that the institution he was defending was the 
one where his own youth had been nurtured ; and the moral 
tenderness and beauty this gave to the grandeur of his thoughts, 
the sort of religious sensibility it imparted to his urgent appeals 
and demands for the stern fulfilment of what law and justice 
required, wrought up the whole audience to an extraordinary 
state of excitement. Many betrayed strong agitation, many 
were dissolved in tears. Prominent among them was that 
eminent lawyer and statesman, Robert Goodloe Harper, who 
came to him when he resumed his seat, evincing emotions of 
the highest gratification. When he ceased to speak, there was 
a perceptible interval before any one was willing to break the 
silence; and when that vast crowd separated, not one person of 
the whole number doubted that the man who had that day 
so moved, astonished, and controlled them, had vindicated for 
himself a place at the side of the first jurists of the country." * 

The opinion of the court, unanimous, with the 
exception of Justice Duvall, was pronounced by Chief 

* " American Review," vol. ix. p. 434. 



l6o AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

Justice Marshall in the term for 1819, declaring the 
acts of the legislature of New Hampshire to be un- 
constitutional and invalid, and reversing the opinion 
of the court below. By this opinion the law of the 
land in reference to collegiate charters was firmly 
established. Henceforward our colleges and uni- 
versities and their trustees, unless provision to the 
contrary is made in their acts of incorporation, stand 
upon the broad basis of common right and justice; 
holding in like manner as individuals their property 
and franchises by a firm legal tenure, and not subject 
to control or interference on the part of the local 
legislatures on the vague ground that public institu- 
tions are at the mercy of the government. That 
such is the recognized law of the land is owing in 
no small degree to the ability wiLh which the Dart- 
mouth College case was argued by Mr. Webster. 
The battle fought and the victory gained in this case 
were fought and gained for every college and uni- 
versity, for every academy and school, in the United 
States, endowed with property or possessed of chart- 
ered rights. It ought to be mentioned, to the credit 
of the State of New Hampshire, that she readily ac- 
quiesced in the decision of the Supreme Court of 
the United States, and made no attempt to sustain 
her recent legislation. 

This celebrated cause, argued with such success 
before the highest tribunal in the country, established 
Mr. Webster's position in the profession. It placed 
him at once with Emmett and Pinkney and Wirt, 
in the front rank of the American bar, and, though 
considerably the youngest of this illustrious group, 



DANIEL WEBSTER l6l 

on an equality with the most distinguished of them. 
He was henceforward retained in ahnost every con- 
siderable cause argued at Washington. No counsel 
in the United States has probably been engaged in 
a larger portion of the business brought before that 
tribunal. While Mr. Webster as a politician and a 
statesman performed an amount of intellectual labor 
sufficient to form the sole occupation of an active 
life, there is no doubt that his arguments to the 
court and his addresses to the jury in important 
suits at law would, if they had been reported like 
his political speeches, have filled a much greater 
space. 

It would exceed the limits of this sketch to allude 
in detail to all the cases argued by Mr. Webster in 
the Supreme Court of the United States; still less 
would it be practicable to trace him through his 
labors in the State courts. We can barely mention 
a few of the more considerable causes. The case of 
Gibbons and Ogden, in 1824, is one of great celeb- 
rity. In this case the grant by the State of New 
York to the assignees of Fulton, of an exclusive 
right to navigate the rivers, harbors, and bays of 
New York by steam, was called in question, and was 
decided to be unconstitutional, after having been 
maintained by all the tribunals of that great State. 
The decision turned upon the principle, that the 
grant of such a monopoly of the right to enter a 
portion of the navigable waters of the Union was 
an encroachment, by the State, upon the power " to 
regulate commerce," — a power reserved by the Con- 
stitution to Congress, and in its nature exclusive. 

A. B., VOL. VI. — II 



1 62 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

The decision of the court was against the monopoly. 
Few cases in the annals of federal jurisprudence are 
of equal importance ; none, perhaps, was ever ar- 
gued with greater ability. In the course of his dis- 
cussion, Mr. Webster said, with great felicity of 
illustration, that, by the establishment of the Con- 
stitution, the commerce of this whole country had 
become a unit^ a form of expression used with ap- 
probation by Chief Justice Marshall in delivering 
the opinion of the court. 

A very distinguished compliment was paid to Mr. 
Webster's argument in this case, a quarter of a cen- 
tury after its delivery, by Mr. Justice Wayne of the 
Supreme Court of the United States, who in a pub- 
lic address of welcome to Savannah, Ga., said to 
Mr. Webster: — 



" From one of your constitutional suggestions, every man in 
the land has been more or less benefited. We allude to it with 
the greater pleasure, because it was in a controversy begun by a 
Georgian in behalf of the constitutional rights of the citizen. 
When the late Mr. Thomas Gibbons determined to put to 
hazard a large part of his fortune in testing the constitutionality 
of the laws of New York limiting the navigation of the waters 
of that State to steamers belonging to a company, his own in- 
terest was not so much concerned as the right of every citizen 
to use a coasting license upon the waters of the United States, 
in whatever way their vessels might be propelled. It was a 
sound view of the law, but not broad enough for the occasion. 
It is not unlikely that the case would have been decided upon 
it, if you had not insisted that it should be put upon the broader 
constitutional ground of commerce and navigation. The court 
felt the application and force of your reasoning, and it made a 
decision releasing every creek, and river, lake, bay, and har- 
bor in our country from the interference of monopolies, which 
had already provoked unfriendly legislation between some of the 



DANIEL WEBSTER 163 

States, and which would have been as little favorable to the 
interest of Fulton, as they were unworthy his genius." 

The case of Ogclen and Saunders, in 1827, 
brought in question the right of a State to pass an 
insolvent law. It was of course a case of high con- 
stitutional law, belonging to the same general class 
with those just mentioned, and relating to the limit 
of the powers of the several States, in reference to 
matters confided by the Consti4;ution to the General 
Government. In his argument in this case, Mr. Web- 
ster maintained the entire unconstitutionality of 
State bankrupt laws. The court was divided in 
opmion, but a majority of the judges held, that, al- 
though it was not competent to a State to pass a law 
discharging a debtor from the obligation of pay- 
ment, they might pass a law to discharge him from 
imprisonment on personal execution. The Chief 
Justice and Judge Story were the minority of the 
court, and the opinion of the Chief Justice sustained 
the principle of Mr. Webster's argument, which is, 
in fact, usually regarded as not falling below his 
most successful forensic efforts. 

In the month of January, 1848, the great Rhode 
Island case was brought before the Supreme Court 
of the United States, and argued by Mr. Webster 
for the chartered government of the State, and 
against the insurrectionary government, to which 
an abortive attempt had been made to give the form 
of a constitution, by a pretended act of the popular 
will. The true principles of popular and constitu- 
tional government are explored with unsurpassed 
sagacity in this argument. 



164 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

A large portion of the causes argued by Mr. Web- 
ster belong to the province of constitutional law, 
and have their origin in that partition of powers 
which exists between the State governments and the 
srovernment of the United States, each clothed with 
sovereignty in its appropriate sphere, each subject 
to limitations resulting from its relations to the 
other, each possessing its legislative bodies, its judi- 
cial tribunals, its executive authorities, and conse- 
quently armed with the means of asserting its rights, 
and both combined into one great political system. 
In such a system it cannot but happen that ques- 
tions of conflicting jurisdiction should arise, and 
no small portion of Mr. Webster's forensic life 
was devoted to their investigation. It is un- 
necessary to state that they are questions of an ele- 
vated character. They often involve the validity of 
the legislative acts and judicial decisions of govern- 
ments substantially independent, as they may in fact 
the constitutionality of the acts of Congress itself. 
No court in England will allow any thing, not even 
a treaty with a foreign government, or the most un- 
doubted principles of the law of nations, to be 
pleaded against an act of Parliament. The Supreme 
Court of the United States entertains the question 
not only of the constitutionality of the acts of the 
legislatures of States possessing most of the attri- 
butes of sovereignty, but also of the constitutionality 
of the acts of the national legislature, which pos- 
sesses those attributes of sovereignty which are de- 
nied to the States. These circumstances give great 
dignity to its deliberations, and tend materially to 



DANIEL WEBSTER 165 

elevate the character of a constitutional lawyer in 
the United States. Professional training in Eng- 
land has not been deemed the best school of states- 
manship ; but it will be readily perceived, that in this 
country a great class of questions, and those of the 
highest importance, belong alike to the senate and 
the court. Every one must feel that, in the case of 
Mr, Webster, the lawyer and the statesman have 
contributed materially to form each other. 

Before quite quitting this subject, it may be proper 
to allude to Mr. Webster's professional labors of an- 
other class, in the ordinary State tribunals. Em- 
ployed as counsel in all the most important cases 
during a long professional life, it is hardly neces- 
sary to say, that his investigations extended to every 
department of the law, and that his speeches to the 
jury and arguments to the court evinced a mastery 
of the learning and a control of the logic belonging 
to it, w^hich are in most cases to be attained only by 
the exclusive study and practice of a life. The jurist 
and the advocate were so mingled in Mr. Webster's 
professional character that it is not easy to say which 
predominated. His fervid spirit and glowing imagi- 
nation placed at his control all the resource of an 
overwhelming rhetoric, and made him all-powerful 
with a jury; while the ab-lest court was guided by his 
severe logic, and instructed by the choice w^hich he 
laid before them of the most appropriate learning 
of the cases which he argued. It happens, unfortu- 
nately, that forensic efforts of this kind are rarely 
reported at length. A brief sketch of an important 
law argument finds a place in the history of the case, 



1 66 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

but distinguished counsel rarely have time or be- 
stow the labor required to reproduce in writing an 
elaborate address either to court or jury. There 
is probably no species of intellectual labor of the 
highest order which perishes for want of a contem- 
porary record to the same extent as that which is 
daily exerted in the courts of law. 

Two speeches addressed to the jury by Mr. 
Webster in criminal trials have remained famous. 
One was delivered in the case of Goodridge, 
and in defence of the persons whom he accused 
of having robbed him on the highway. This 
cause was tried in 1817, shortly after the estalj- 
lishment of Mr. Webster at Boston. Rarely has 
a case, in itself of no greater importance, pro- 
duced a stronger impression of the ability of the 
counsel. The cross-examination of Goodridge, who 
pretended to have been robbed, and who had pre- 
viously been considered a person of some degree of 
respectability, is still remembered at the bar of Mas- 
sachusetts as terrific beyond example, and the speech 
to the jury in which his artfully contrived tale was 
stripped of its disguises may be studied as a model 
of this species of exposition. 

Mr. Webster's speech to the jury in the memor- 
able nnirder case of John F. Knapp is of a higher 
interest. The great importance of this case, as well 
on account of the legal principles involved, as of the 
depth of the tragedy in real life with which it was 
connected, gave it a painful celebrity. The record of 
the causes ccichres of no country or age will furnish 
either a more thrilling narrative, or a forensic effort 



DANIEL WEBSTER 1 67 

of greater ability. A passage on the power of con- 
science will arrest the attention of the reader. There 
is nothing in our language superior to it. It was 
unquestionably owing to the legal skill and moral 
courage with which the case was conducted by Mr. 
Webster, that one of the foulest crimes ever com- 
mitted was brought to condign punishment ; and the 
nicest refinements of the law of evidence were made 
the means of working out the most important prac- 
tical results. But it is time to return to the chrono- 
logical series of events. 



CHAPTER IV 

The Convention to revise the Constitution of Massachusetts. — 
Centennial Anniversary at Plymouth, December 22d, 1820. — 
Bunker Hill Monument. — Addresses. — Simultaneous Decease 
of Adams and Jefferson. — Eulogy by Mr. Webster. — Laying 
of the Corner-Stone of the New Wing of the Capitol. — Re- 
marks on the Patriotic Discourses of Mr. Webster. 

In 1820, on the separation of Maine from Massa- 
chusetts, a convention became necessary in the latter 
State to readjust the Senate; and the occasion was 
deemed a favorable one for a general revision of the 
Constitution. The various towns in the Common- 
wealth were authorized by law to choose as many 
delegates as they were entitled to elect members to 
the House of Representatives ; and a body was con- 
stituted containing much of the talent, political ex- 
perience, and weight of character of the State. Mr. 
Webster was chosen one of the delegates from 
Boston; and, with the exception of a few days' ser- 
vice, two or three years afterward, in the Massachu- 
setts House of Representatives,* this is the only oc- 

* Mr. Webster makes the following playful allusion to this 
circumstance in a speech at a public dinner in Syracuse (New 
York): 

" It has so happened that all the public services which I have 
rendered in the world, in my day and generation, have been con- 
nected with the General Government. I think I ought to make 
an exception. I was ten days a member of the Massachusetts 
legislature, and I turned my thoughts to the search for some 

168 



Daniel Webster 169 

caslon on which he ever filled any political office 
under the State g-overnment either of Massachu- 
setts or New Hampshire. 

The convention of 1820 was no doubt as respect- 
able a political body as ever assembled in Massachu- 
setts ; and it is no more than justice to Mr. Webster 
to say, that although he had been l)ut a few years 
a citizen of the Commonwealth, and was personally 
a stranger to most of his associates, he was among 
the most efficient members of the body. He was 
named chairman of the committee to whom the im- 
portant subject of oaths and qualifications for office 
was referred, and of the special committee on that 
chapter of the constitution which relates to the 
" University of Cambridge." Besides taking a lead- 
ing part in the discussion of most of the important 
subjects which were agitated in the convention, he 
was the authority most deferred to on questions of 
order, and in that way exercised a steady and power- 
ful influence over the general course of its pro- 
ceedings. 

In the speech on the basis of the Senate, Mr. Web- 
ster defended the principle, which was incorporated 
into the original constitution, and is recognized by 
the liberal writers of greatest authority on govern- 
ment, that due regard should be had to property in 
establishing a basis of representation. He showed 

good object in which I could be useful in that position; and, 
after much reflection, I introduced a bill which, with the gen- 
eral consent of both houses of the Massachusetts legislature, 
passed into a law, and is now a law of the State, which enacts 
that no man in the State shall catch trout in any other manner 
than in the old way, with an ordinary hook and line." 



I/O AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

the connection between the security of republican 
hberty and this principle. He first called attention 
in this country to the fact, that this important prin- 
ciple was originally developed in Harrington's 
'' Oceana," a work much studied by our Revolution- 
ary fathers. The practical consequence which Mr. 
Webster deduced from the principle was, that consti- 
tutional and legal provision ought to be made to pro- 
duce the utmost possible diffusion and equality of 
property. 

While the Massachusetts convention was in ses- 
sion, Mr. Webster appeared before the public in 
another department of intellectual effort, and with 
the most distinguished success. In 1820, Mr. Web- 
ster was invited by the Pilgrim Society at Plymouth 
to deliver a discourse on the great anniversary of 
New England, the ever memorable 22d of Decem- 
ber. Several circumstances contributed on this oc- 
casion to the interest of the day. The peaceful 
surrender by Massachusetts of a portion of her 
territory, greatly exceeding in magnitude that 
which she retained, in order to form the new State 
of Maine, was a pleasing exemplification of that 
prosperous multiplication of independent common- 
wealths within the limits of the Union, which forms 
(^ne of the most distinctive features in our history. 
It was as much an alienation of territory from the 
local jurisdiction of Massachusetts, as if it had been 
ceded to Great Britain, and yet the alienation was 
cordially made. At this very time a controversy 
existed between the United States and England, 
relative to the conflicting title of the two govern- 



DANIEL WEBSTER 171 

ments to a very small portion, and that the least 
valuable part, of the same territory, which, after 
the aggravations and irritations of forty years of 
controversy, was in 1842 adjusted by Mr. Webster 
and Lord Ashburton, at a moment when war seemed 
all but inevitable. In any other country or age of the 
world, Maine could have been severed from Massa- 
chusetts only by a bloody revolution. Their amicable 
separation by mutual consent, although neither the 
first nor the second similar event in the United 
States, was still an occurrence which carried back 
the reflections of thoughtful men to the cradle of 
New England. 

These reflections gathered interest from the con- 
vention then in session. Several of the topics which 
presented themselves to Mr. Webster's mind, and 
were discussed by him at Plymouth, had entered 
into the debates of the convention a few days before. 
Still more, the close of the second century from 
the landing of the Fathers, with all its miglity 
series of events in the social, political, and moral 
world, gave the highest interest to the occasion. Six 
New England generations were to pass in review. It 
was an anniversary which could be celebrated no- 
where else as it could be at Plymouth. It was such 
an anniversary, with its store of traditions, com- 
parisons, and anticipations, as none then living could 
witness again. 

The discourse delivered by him in pursuance of 
their invitation was In some respects the most re- 
markable of his performances. The felicity and 
spirit with which its descriptive portions are exe- 



17-2 AMERICAN BIOC.KAPHY 

cured : the affecting tribute which it pays to the mem- 
ory of the Pilgrims: the moving picture of their 
sufferings on botli sides of the water: the masterly 
exposition and analysis of those institutions to which 
the prosperity of Xew England luuler Providence 
is owing: the ekx|uent inculcation of those great 
principles of republicanism on which our American 
commonwealths are founded: the instructive survey 
of the past, the sublime anticipations of the future 
of America. — have long since given this discourse a 
classical celebrity. Several of its soul-stirring pas- 
sages have become as household words throughout 
the countrv Thev are anions: the most favorite 
of the extracts containeil in the schoc^l-books. An 
entire generation of yoimg men have derived from 
this noble perfonnance some ot their first lessons 
in the true principles of American republicanism. 

In the course oi a few years, when the comer- 
stone of the Bunker Hill Monument was to be laid, 
on the fiftieth anniversarv of the battle, the general 
expectation again pointed to Mr. Webster a: the 
orator of the dav. This. too. was a great national 
and patriotic anniversank-. For the first time, and 
after the lapse of a half-centur}-. the commencement 
of the war of the American Revolution was to be 
publicly celebrated under novel, significant, and 
highly affecting circimistances. Fifty years had 
extinguished all the unkindly associations of the day. 
and raised it from the narrow sphere of local history- 
to a high place in the annals oi the world. A great 
confederacy had sprung from the blood of Bunker 
Hill. This was too impoitant an event in the history 



DAKIEL WZl^TZr. 1 73 

of tfac worid to be sarrendcred to hostile and party 
ieding. Xo friend of r^resentative g Dve r un ient in 
England had reason to de^.-^zt L:ie fotmdatkm of the 
.American repaiAics. Xo one can doobt that the de- 
velopment of the - tative prind^ in this 
cotmtry has cor ^tly to promote the cause 
of Parliaments ' - J real Britain. Ozhtr 
considerations gave j'-^: . r-t to the f estiva . 
the 17th of June -" Fitvy years of r.a: : L 
1 ft. : rmne. and ex;,cr-z .... .: exhibiting in ineir 
det^ ' ?n unvarv'ing series :^ " sperity (for it was 
fifiy years '" ''"^ '-"'':: -y, not oi angels, but of men), 
but a ■■--i// : 'in the grand aggre^:e 
by any naii-century ::. ::.-: :::-als of the world, v tt 
now brought tc — x'ast as the contrast wl 
the condition of the country at the b^;iii:; ^ 
close of the pericnl there were still livine ve: . 
men who had acted prominer.: i^ i t— it:: ':.-:- 
in the opening scenes of the dr ly±tii \v: ^ . 
shared the perils of 1775 shart f :.'.- — imph : : - 
jubilee. More than a h. v>tf : : 7 eroes :: : r 
battle were among :r- /r : }^- :ors : : is 
great festival. Xot :::t .-is: if:-: : ^ : ,7 : :>f 
the celebration was the presence of Lafaye::c. 
had hastened from his more dian royal progress 
through the Union to take a part in the ceremonial. 
It is unnecessan.- to say, that on such an occasion, 
with all these circumstances addressed to the im- 
aginations and the thoughts of men. in the presence 
of a ^'ast multitude of the intelligent population of 
Massachusetts and the other Xew England Stares. 
with no inconsiderable attendance of kindred and 



I 



174 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

descendants from every part of the Union, an ad- 
dress from such an orator as Mr. Webster, on such 
a platform, on such a theme, in the flower of his age 
and the maturity of his faculties, discoursing upon 
an occasion of transcendent interest, and kindling 
with the enthusiasm of the day and the spot, may 
well be regarded as an intellectual treat of the high- 
est order. 

Scarcely inferior in interest was the anniversary 
celebration, when the Bunker Hill Monument was 
finally completed, in 1843, and Mr. Webster again 
censented to address the immense multitude which 
the ceremonial could not fail to ])ring t(^gether. The 
great work was now finished ; and the most impor- 
tant event in the history of New England was hence- 
forward commemorated by a monument destined, in 
all human probability, to last as long as any work 
erected by the hands of man. The thrill of admira- 
tion w^hich ran through the assembled thousands, 
when, at the commencement of his discourse on that 
occasion, Mr. Webster apostrophized the monument 
itself as the mute orator of the day, has been spoken 
of by those who had the good fortune to be present 
as an emotion beyond the power of language to de- 
scribe. The gesture, the look, the tone of the 
speaker, as he turned to the majestic shaft, seemed 
to invest it with a mysterious life; and men held 
their breath as if a solemn voice was about to come 
down from its towering summit. 

On the 4th of July, 1826, occurred the extraor- 
dinary coincidence of the deaths of Adams and Jef- 
ferson, within a few hours of each other, on the 



DANIEL WEBSTER 175 

fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence ; an event with which they were both so closely 
connected, as members of the committee by which 
the ever-memorable state paper was prepared and 
broug^ht into the Continental Congress. The public 
mind was already predisposed for patriotic emotions 
and sentiments of every kind by many conspiring 
causes. The recency of the Revolutionary contest, 
sutBciently illustrated by the fact that many of those 
engaged in it were still alive and had been the sub- 
jects of liberal provision by Congress; the complete, 
though temporary, fusion of parties, producing for 
a few years a political lull, never witnessed to the 
same extent before or since; the close of the half- 
century from the commencement of the Revolution- 
ary War, and the commemoration of its early con- 
flicts on many of the spots where they occurred ; the 
foundation of the Bunker Hill Monument, and of a 
similar work on a smaller scale at Concord ; the visit 
of Lafayette : abroad, the varying scenes of the Greek 
revolution and the popular movement in many other 
parts of Europe, — united in exciting the public mind 
in this country. They kindled to new fervor the 
susceptible and impulsive American temperament. 
The simultaneous decease of the illustrious patri- 
archs of the Revolution, under these circumstances 
of coincidence, fell upon a community already pre- 
pared to be deeply affected. It touched a tender 
chord, which vibrated from one end of the Union 
to the other. 

It has, perhaps, never been the fortune of an 
orator to treat a subject in all respects so extraordi- 



1/6 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

nary as that which called forth the eulogy on Adams 
and Jefferson; a subject which the characters com- 
memorated, the field of action, the magnitude of the 
events, and the peculiar personal relations, were 
so important and unusual. Certainly it is not ex- 
travagant to add, that no similar effort of oratory 
was ever more completely successful than Mr. 
Webster's address at the funeral services in Fan- 
euil Hall. The speech ascribed to John Adams 
in the Continental Congress, on the subject of 
declaring the independence of the Colonies, — 
a speech of which the topics of course present 
themselves on the most superficial consideration 
what was actually said are supplied by the letters 
and diaries of Mr. Adams, — is not excelled by any 
thing of the kind in our language. Few things have 
taken so strong a hold of the public mind. It 
thrills and delights alike the student of history, who 
recognizes it at once as the creation of the orator, 
and the common reader, who takes it to be the com- 
position, not of Mr. Webster, but of Mr. Adams. 
From the time the eulogy was delivered, the inquiry 
was often made and repeated, sometimes even in 
letters addressed to Mr. Webster himself, whether 
this exr[uisite appeal was his or Mr. Adams's. 

These discourses, with the exception of the second 
Bunker Hill Address, were delivered within about 
five years of each other ; the first on the 22d of De- 
cember, 182c, the last on the 2d of August, 1826. 
In later years he again addressed his fellow-citizens 
on several occasions not immediately connected with 
senatorial or professional duty, and with the power 



DANIEL WEBSTER 1 7/ 

and felicity which mark his earher efforts. The 
most remarkable of these recent addresses is his 
speech delivered at Washington on the 4th of July, 
185 1, at the ceremonial of the laying of the corner- 
stone of the addition to the Capitol. This ceremo- 
nial, itself of no ordinary interest, and the aspect of 
public affairs under which it was performed, gave 
a peculiar fervor and solemnity to Mr. Webster's 
treatment of the subject. 

This great oration, perhaps not premeditated so 
carefully, as far as the mere language is concerned, 
as those of an earlier date with which we have 
classed it, is not inferior to either of them in the 
essentials of patriotic eloquence. It belongs, in 
common with them, to a species of oratory neither 
forensic nor parliamentary nor academical; and 
which might perhaps conveniently enough be de- 
scribed by the epithet which we have just applied 
to it, — the patriotic. These addresses are strongly 
discriminated from the forensic and the parliamen- 
tary class of speeches, in being from the nature of 
the case more elaborately prepared. The public 
taste in a highly cultivated community would not 
admit, in a performance of this kind, those marks 
of extemporaneous execution, which it not only tol- 
erates, but admires, in the unpremeditated efforts of 
the senate and the bar. The latter shines to greatest 
advantage in happy impromptu strokes, whether of 
illustration or argument ; the former admits, and 
therefore demands, the graceful finish of a mature 
preparation. 

It is not, indeed, to be supposed, that an orator 

A. B,, VOL. VI.— 12 



1/8 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

like Mr. Webster is Slavishly tied down, on any occa- 
sion, to his manuscript notes, or to a memoriter repe- 
tition of their contents. It may be presumed that 
in many cases the noblest and the boldest flights, the 
last and warmest tints thrown upon the canvas, in 
discourses of this kind, were the unpremeditated in- 
spiration of the moment of delivery. The opposite 
view would be absurd, because it would imply that 
the mind, under the high excitement of delivery, was 
less fertile and creative than in the repose of the 
closet. A speaker could not, if he attempted it, anti- 
cipate in his study the earnestness and fervor of 
spirit induced by actual contact with the audience; 
he could not by any possibility forestall the sympa- 
thetic influence upon his imagination and intellect 
of the listening and applauding throng. However 
severe the method required by the nature of the occa- 
sion, or dictated by his own taste, a speaker like Mr. 
Webster will not often confine himself '' to pouring 
out fervors a week old." 

The orator who would do justice to a great theme 
or a great occasion must thoroughly study and 
understand the subject; he must accurately, and if 
possible minutely, digest in writing beforehand the 
substance, and even the form, of his address ; other- 
wise, though he may speak ably, he will be apt not to 
make in all respects an able speech. He must en- 
tirely possess himself beforehand of the main things 
which he wishes to say, and then throw himself upon 
the excitement of the moment and the sympathy of 
the audience. In those portions of his discourse 
which are didactic or narrative, he will not be likely 



DANIEL WEBSTER 1 79 

to wander, in any direction, far from his notes; al- 
tliough even in those portions new facts, ilhistra- 
tions, and suggestions will be apt to spring up before 
him as he proceeds. But when the topic rises, when 
the mind kindles from within, and the strain becomes 
loftier, or bolder, or more pathetic, when the sacred 
fountain of tears is ready to overflow, and audience 
and speaker are moved by one kindred sympathetic 
passion, then the thick-coming fancies cannot be kept 
down, the storehouse of the memory is unlocked, 
images start up from the slumber of years, and all 
that the orator has seen, read, heard, or felt returns 
in distinct shape and vivid colors. The cold and 
premeditated text will no longer suffice for the glow- 
ing thought. The stately, balanced phrase gives 
place to some abrupt, graphic expression, that rushes 
unbidden to his lips. The unforeseen incident or 
locality furnishes an apt and speaking image ; and 
the discourse instinctively transposes itself into a 
higher key. 

Many illustrations of these remarks may be found 
in Mr. Webster's speeches. We may refer particular- 
ly to the address to the survivors of the Revolution 
and the apostrophe to Warren in the first discourse 
on Bunker Hill. These were topics too obvious 
and essential, in an address on laying the corner- 
stone of the monument, to have been omitted in the 
orator's notes prepared beforehand. But no one will 
think that the entire apostrophe to Warren, as it 
stands in the reported speech, was elaborated in the 
closet and committed to memory. After speaking 
of the hero he breaks into an impassioned address to 



l8o AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

him, and passing, after a few intervening clauses, 
from the third person to the second, he exclaims, 
" How shall I struggle with the emotions that stifle 
the utterance of thy name! Our poor work may 
perish, but thine shall endure ! This monument may 
moulder away ; the solid ground it rests upon may 
sink down to a level with the sea; but thy memory 
shall not fail ! " 



CHAPTER V 

Election to Congress from Boston. — The Eighteenth Congress. 
— Resolution and Speech in favor of the Greeks. — The Tariff 
Law of 1824. — Law for the Punishment of Crimes against 
the United States. — The Election of ^Vlr. Adams as Presi- 
dent. — Meeting of the Nineteenth Congress. — Congress of 
Panama. — Election as U. S. Senator. — Revision of the Tariff 
Law. 

In the autumn of 1822, Mr. Webster consented 
to be a candidate for Congress for the city (then 
town) of Boston, and was chosen by a very large 
majority over his opponent, Mr. Jesse Putnam. The 
former party distinctions, as has been already ob- 
served, had nearly lost their significance in Massa- 
chusetts, as in some other parts of the country. As 
a necessary, or at least a natural consequence of this 
state of things, four candidates had already been 
brought forward for the Presidential election of 
November, 1824; namely, Mr. John Quincy Adams 
of Massachusetts, Mr. Clay of Kentucky, General 
Jackson of Tennessee, and Mr. Crawford of 
Georgia. Air. Calhoun of South Carolina and Mr. 
Lowndes of the same State had also both been nom- 
inated by their friends at an early period of the can- 
vass, but the latter was soon removed by death, and 
Mr. Calhoim withdrew his pretensions in favor of 
General Jackson. All the candidates named had 

either originally belonged to the old Democratic 

181 



1 82 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

party (or Republican party as it was then more usu- 
ally called), or had for many years attached them- 
selves to it; but no one of them was supported on 
that ground. 

The Congressional elections in Massachusetts are 
held a year in advance. It was not till December, 
1823, that Mr. Webster took his seat as a member 
of the Eighteenth Congress. It has rarely happened 
to an individual, by engaging in public life, to make 
an equal sacrifice of personal interest. Born to an 
inheritance of poverty, struggling through youth 
and early manhood against all the difficulties of 
straitened means and a narrow sphere, he had risen 
above them all. and was now in an advantageous 
position, at the height of his reputation, receiving 
as great a professional income as any lawyer in the 
United States, and rapidly laying the foundation of 
an ample independence. x\ll this was to be put at 
risk for the hazardous uncertainty, and the scarcely 
less hazardous certainties, of public life. It was 
not till after repeated refusals of a nomination to 
both houses of Congress, that Mr. Webster was at 
last called upon, in a manner which seemed to him 
imperative, to make the great sacrifice. In fact, 
it may truly be said, that, to an individual of his 
commanding talent and familiarity with political 
affairs, and consequent ability to take a lead in the 
public business, the question whether he shall do so 
is hardly submitted to his option. It is one of the 
great privileges of second-rate men, that they are 
permitted in some degree to follow the bent of their 
inclinations. It was the main inducement of Mr. 



DANIEL WEBSTER 1 83 

Webster in returning to political life, that the cessa- 
tion of the coarse conflicts of party warfare seemed 
to hold out some hope that statesmanship of a higher 
order, an impartial study of the great interests of 
the country, and a policy aiming to promote the 
development of its vast natural resources, might 
be called into action. 

Although the domestic politics of the United 
States were in a condition of repose, the politics of 
F.urope at this time were disturbed and anxious. 
Revolutions had within a few years broken out in 
Naples, Piedmont, and Spain; while in Greece a 
highly interesting struggle was in progress, between 
the Christian population of that country and the 
government of their Ottoman oppressors. At an 
early period of this contest, it had attracted much 
notice in the United States. President Monroe, both 
in his annual message of December, 1822, and in 
that of 1823, had expressed respect and sympathy 
for their cause. The attention of Congress being 
thus called to the subject, Mr. Webster thought it 
a favorable opportunity to speak an emphatic word, 
from a quarter whence it would be respected, in 
favor of those principles of rational liberty and en- 
lightened progress which were seeking to extend 
themselves in Europe. As the great strength of the 
Grecian patriots was to be derived, not from the 
aid of the governments of Christendom, but from 
the public opinion and the sympathy of the civilized 
world, he felt that they had a peculiar right to expect 
some demonstration of friendly feeling from the 
only powerful republican state. He was also evi- 



lU 



A3.:z 



Z:: 3RAPHY 



dentiT ^ :: e" 

iag an Ar 



~r 

tune was 



;ri:e the opportimitf of enter- 
:ri: again sr me doctrines whidi 

:ei lestoifcs oi the 

1-1 e iL-j..-:.:. sovereigns. 

Till die ainrrLisrrauon of 2.1 r. Jciicrson, it had 
been the custom of the two houses to return answers 
to the annnal messages or ihe President. These 
answers ramisbed Congress with the means of re- 
-' execuiive suegesdons. As much 

. these answers 
i a coosnr : . : : - : : . .e to any 

legislative result;, and as dinerences :r. i.ion be- 
tween Congress and the Elxecutive, if 'ihty existed, 
were th.is prematurely developed, it was thought a 
matter of convenience, when Mr. Jefferson came 
into power, to depart from the usage. But though 
attended with _ it had its advantages. The op- 
portmiitT of general p:;litical debate, imder a gov- 
ernment like ours, if not furnished, will be taken. 
The constituencies look to their representatives to 
discuss pol^ questions. It will perhaps be founds 
on conqnring the proceedings of Congress at the 
present day with what they were fif r>- years ago, that, 
aldioi^:fa tiic genera' debate on the answer to the 
President's messa. is been retrenched, there is in 
the course of the session quite as modi discussion 
of topics incidentally brought in, and often to the 
serious obstruction of the public business, at the 
.advanced stages of the session. 

Whatever 'r^y be thought of this as a general 
princ^ile, Presiter.t Monroe, as we have seen, hav- 
iog in two successive annual messages called the 



DANIEL WEBSTER iS: 



attention of Congress to this subject, Mr. W 

by way of response to these allusions, at i::. early 
period of the session ottered the following resc/.-'T": :n 
in the House of Represer.tatives : — 

** Rjc: ' Ths: proris:::: ctJg'lit to be ZLi^de trr la-sr fo-r de- 
fragfia^ — i i_v_;'i:ii-e i~ cider: rr^ ihe appoinrment cf an 2gent or 
owninmsgicT^gr to Greece, -orberseTer ibe Presideai ^'h ?M deem it 
ezKpedit: : i^e such appointment.^ 

His speech an sioq^ort of this resohition wa? de- 
livered cm the 19th of January, 1S24, in the pre -t:-.:e 
of an immense audience. To a subject on which 
it was almost impossible to avoid a certain strain 
of classical sentinaent Mr. ^^'ebste^ brought a chast- 
ened taste and a severe logic He indulged in do 
ad captandum reference to the topics which lay most 
obvious/' :iis way. A sing-le allusion to Greece, 
as the mistress of the world in letters and arts. : .: /. d 
an aq^rc^riate ^ace in the exordium. But he neither 
rhaqisodized aboot the ancients, nor denounced the 
T::rks, nor oveiiiowed with Americanism. He 
:' :..::i in a stat^manlike manioer. what he justly 
:.. .- ;. "^Ihe great pcditical question of the ag-e," the 
question "between ahedlute and reg^jilated govern- 
ments," and die dut}- of ithe United States on ntrng 
occasions to let their voice be heard on this ques- 
ti<ML He concisely ^e^-iewed the doctrines of the 
Oxitinefital sovereicrns, a>; set forth in what has 
been called ** the Holv Alliance." and in the mani- 
festoes of se^'e^al sucxressive congresses. He pointed 
oat the inconsistenc}' of these principles with those 
oi sdf-g*o\'emn:>ent and national independence, and 



1 86 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

the duty of the United States to declare their senti- 
ments in support of the latter. He showed that such 
a declaration was inconsistent with no principle of 
public law, and forbidden by no prudential consid- 
eration. He briefly sketched the history of the Greek 
revolution ; and having shown that his proposal was 
a pacific measure, both as regards the Turkish gov- 
ernment and the European allies, he took leave of the 
subject with a few manly words of sympathy for 
the Greeks. 

He was supported by several leading members 
of the House, — by Mr. Clay, Mr. Stevenson of 
Virginia, afterward Speaker of the House and Min- 
ister of England, and by General Houston of Ten- 
nessee; but the subject lay too far beyond the ordi- 
nary range of legislation ; it gained no strength from 
the calculations of any of the Presidential candi- 
dates ; it enlisted none of the great local interests of 
the country ; and it was not of a nature to be pushed 
against opposition or indifference. It w^as probably 
with little or no expectation of carrying it, that the 
resolution was moved by Mr. Webster. His object 
was gained in the opportunity of expressing himself 
upon the great political question of the day. His 
words of encouragement were soon read in every 
capital and at every court of Europe, and in every 
Continental language; they were received with grate- 
ful emotion in Greece. 

It was during this session that Mr. Webster made 
his great argument in the Supreme Court of the 
United States in the case of Gibbons and Ogden, to 
which we have already alluded. It must increase 



DANIEL WEBSTER 1 87 

the admiration with which this great constitutional 
effort is read, to know that the case came on in court 
a week or ten days earher than Mr. Webster ex- 
pected, and that it was late in the afternoon, after 
a severe debate in the House of Representatives on 
some of the details of the tariff bill, that he received 
the intimation that he must be ready to go into court 
and argue the cause the next morning. At this time 
his brief was not drawn out; and the statement of 
the argument, the selecting of the authorities, and 
the final digest of his materials, whether of reason- 
ing or fact, were to be the work of the few interven- 
ing hours. It is superfluous to say that there was 
no long space for rest or sleep; though it seems 
hardly credible that the only specific premeditation 
of such an argument before such a tribunal should 
have been in the stolen watches of one night. 

In the course of this session Mr. Webster, besides 
taking a leading part in the discussion of the details 
of the tariff law of 1824, made a carefully prepared 
speech, in reply to Mr. Clay, on some of the princi- 
ples upon which he had supported it. Mr. Webster 
did not contest the constitutional right of Congress 
to lay duties for the protection of manufactures. 
He opposed the bill on grounds of expediency, drawn 
from the condition of the country at the time, and 
from the unfriendly bearing of some of its provisions 
on the navigating interests. 

No subject of great popular interest came up for 
debate in the second session of the Eighteenth Con- 
gress, but the attention of Mr. Webster, as chairman 
of the Judiciary Committee, was assiduously devoted 



1 88 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

to a subject of great practical importance; brought 
forward entirely without ostentation or display, but 
inferior in interest to scarce any act of legislation 
since the first organization of government. We 
refer to the act of the 3d of March, 1825, ''more 
effectually to provide for the punishment of certain 
crimes against the United States, and for other 
purposes." There was a class of cases, arising out 
of the complex nature of our system, and the two- 
fold jurisdiction existing in the United States, 
which, being entirely novel in the history of other 
governments, was scarcely to be provided for in ad- 
vance. The analysis of the English constitution here 
failed the able men upon whom it devolved to put 
the new system of government in operation. It is 
to be wondered at, not that some things were over- 
looked, but that so many were provided for. 

Of the cases left thus unprovided for, more per- 
haps were to be found in the judiciary department 
than in any other. Many crimes committed on ship- 
board, beyond the jurisdiction of any State, or in 
places within the Union excepted from State juris- 
diction, were unprovided for. Mr. Webster accord- 
ingly drew up what finally passed the two houses, 
as the sixty-fifth chapter of the laws of the second 
session of the Eighteenth Congress, and procured the 
assent of the Committee on the Judiciary to report it 
to the House. Some amendments of no great mo- 
ment were made to it on its passage, partly on the 
motion of Mr. W^ebster himself, and partly on the 
suesfestion of other members of the House. As it 
finally passed, in twenty-six sections, it covered all 



DANIEL WEBSTER 1 89 

the cases which had occurred in the thirty-five years 
which had elapsed since the law of 1790 was en- 
acted ; and it amounted to a brief, but comprehen- 
sive, code of the criminal jurisprudence of the United 
States, as distinct from that of the separate States. 
At this session of Congress the election of a Presi- 
dent of the United States devoh^ed upon the House 
of Representatives, in default of a popular choice. 
The votes of the electoral colleges were ninety-nine 
for General Jackson, eighty-four for Mr. Adams, 
forty-one for Mr. Crawford, and thirty-seven for 
Mr. Clay. This was the second time since the adop- 
tion of the Constitution, in 1789, and such an event 
had occurred. The other case was in 1801, and 
under the Constitution in its original form, which 
required the electoral colleges to vote for two per- 
sons, without designating w^hich of the two w^as to 
be President, and which Vice-President, the choice 
between the two to be decided by plurality. The 
Republican candidates, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron 
Burr, having received each an equal number of votes, 
it devolved upon the House of Representatives to 
designate one of them as President. The Constitu- 
tion was immediately amended so as to require the 
candidates for the two offices to be designated as 
such in the electoral colleges ; so that precisely such 
a case as that of 1801 can never recur. In 1824, 
however, no person having received a majority of 
all the votes, it became necessary for the House to 
choose a President from among the three candidates 
having the highest number. On these occasions the 
House votes, not per capita, but by States. The re- 



190 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

suit was declared to be, for Mr. Adams thirteen 
votes, for General Jackson seven, and for Mr. Craw- 
ford four. 

Mr. ^^>bster had been elected to the Nineteenth 
Congress in the autumn of 1824, by a vote of four 
thousand nine hundred and ninety out of five thou- 
sand votes cast, the nearest approach to unanimity 
in a Congressional election, perhaps, that ever took 
place. The session which began in December, 1825, 
was of course the first session under Mr. Adams's 
administration. The brief armistice in party war- 
fare which existed under Air. Monroe was over. 
The friends of General Jackson en masse, most of 
the friends of ]\Ir. Crawford, and a portion of those 
of Mr. Clay, joined in a violent opposition to the 
new administration. It would be impossible in this 
place to unfold the griefs, the interests, the projects, 
the jealousies, and the mutual struggles, of the lead- 
ers and the factions, who, with no community of 
political principle, entered into this warfare. The 
absence of any well-defined division of parties, like 
that which had formerly existed, gave wide scope 
to personal intrigue and sectional preference. Al- 
though, estimated in reference to individual suf- 
frages. Mr. Adams had received a popular majority; 
and although he was selected from the three highest 
candidates by an absolute majority of the States vot- 
ing in the House of Representatives, and by a very 
large plurality over each of his competitors, yet, 
as General Jackson had received a small plurality of 
votes in the electoral colleges (but a little more, how- 
ever, than a third part of the entire electoral vote), 



DANIEL WEBSTER I9I 

he stood before the masses as a candidate wrong-fuUy 
deprived of the place to which he was designated 
by the popular choice. Great sensibility was evinced 
at this defeat of the " Will of the People ; " and none 
seemed to feel the wrong more than a portion of 
the friends of that one of the three candidates who 
had received the smallest vote, but whom there had 
been, nevertheless, a confident hope of electing in 
the House. The prejudice against Mr. Adams aris- 
ing from this source derived strength from the 
widely circulated calumny of a corrupt understand- 
ing between him and Mr. Clay. The bare suspicion 
of an arrangement between party leeaders to help 
each other into office, however groundless in point of 
fact, and however disproved by all the testimony 
which could be brought to bear on a negative propo- 
sition, was sufficient seriously to affect the popular- 
ity of both parties. 

Mr. Adams's administration was conducted with 
the highest ability ; it was incorruptible ; it was fru- 
gal ; it was tolerant of opponents to its own injury. 
With the exception of half a dozen editors of news- 
papers warmly opposed to the administration, from 
whom the trifling privilege of printing the laws was 
withdrawn, no one was removed from office for 
political opinion. But the administration was un- 
popular, and was doomed from its formation. It 
was supported by very able men in both houses of 
Consfress, and of these Mr. Webster was bv all ac- 
knowledgment the chief. But it failed to command 
the confidence of a numerical majority of the people. 

The leading measure of the first session of the 



ig2 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

Nineteenth Congress was the Congress of Panama. 
Mr. Adams had announced in his message at the 
commencement of the session, that an invitation to 
the congress had been accepted, and that " ministers 
on the part of the United States would be com- 
missioned to attend its dehberations." The con- 
firmation of the ministers was vigorously resisted in 
the Senate, and the resolution declaring the expedi- 
ency of making the requisite appropriation as strenu- 
ously opposed in the House. 

The subjeet was discussed with great ability in 
both houses. The greater portion of the senatorial 
debate was with closed doors. Mr. Webster's speech 
in the House is far the ablest of those published. 
It raised the question from the wretched level of 
party politics to the elevation of real statesmanship. 
Ii discussed the constitutional question with a clear- 
ness and power which make us wonder that it was 
ever raised; and it unfolded the true nature of the 
proposed congress, as viewed in the light of the pub- 
lic law. A very important topic of the speech was 
an explanation of the declaration of President Mon- 
roe, in his annual message of 1823, against the in- 
terposition of the governments of Europe for the 
purpose of enabling Spain to resubjugate her former 
colonial possessions on this continent. Mr. Webster 
pointed out the circumstances which warranted at 
the time the opinion that such interposition might 
be attempted : and he stated the important fact, not 
before known, that the purpose on the part of the 
United States to resist it was deliberately and unani- 
mously formed by Mr. Monroe's cabinet, consisting 



DANIEL WEBSTER I93 

at rhat time of Messrs. Adams, Crawford. Calhoun, 
Sc'Uthard. and \Mrt. 

The speech on the Panama question was the most 
considerable effort made by Mr. \\>bster in die 
Nineteenth Consfress. In the inter\-ai of the two ses- 
sions. in Xovember. i8j6. he was reelected witli br.: 
a show of opposition. The eulogy upon Adams aiid 
Tetterson. of which we have already spoken, was de- 
livered in the month of Ausrust of this vear. In the 
month of June. 1S27. Mr. Webster was elected to 
the Senate of the United States by a large majority- 
oi the votes of the two houses of the legislature of 
Massachusetts. 

The principal measure which occupied the atten- 
tion of the two houses durins: tlie tirst session of the 
Twentieth Con§^*ess was the revision of the tariff. 
This measure had its ori^-in in the distressed condi- 
tion of the woollen interests, which found itself de- 
prived (partly by the eft'ect of the repeal oi the duty 
on wool imported into Great Britain) of tliat meas- 
ure oi protection which the tariff law of 1824 was 
desi§:ned to aft'ord. An unsuccessful attempt had 
been made at the last session of Cong'ress. to pass 
a law exclusively for the relief of the woollen manu- 
facturers : but no law having in view tlie protection 
of anv one s^Teat interest is likelv to be enacted bv 
Congress, however called for by tlie particular cir- 
cumstances of the case. At the present session an en- 
tire revision of the tariff* was attempted. A major- 
ity of the two houses was in favor of protection ; but 
there were diff'erent views amono- the friends of the 
policy as to the articles to be protected and the 

A. B.. VOL. VI. — 13 



194 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

amount of protection. This diversity of opinions 
and supposed diversity of interests enabled those 
wholly opposed to the principle and policy of protec- 
tion, by uniting their votes on questions of detail 
with members who represented local interests, to 
render the bill objectionable in many parts to several 
of its friends, and to reduce them to the alternative 
of either voting against it, or tolerating more or less 
which they deemed inexpedient, and even highly in- 
jurious. Hence it received the name of the " Bill 
of Abominations." 

Mr. Webster addressed the Senate, while the bill 
was before that body, exposing the objectionable 
features to which we have alluded. Believing, how- 
ever, that the great article of woollens required the 
protection given it l)y the bill, and regarding the 
general system of protection as the established policy 
of the country and of the government, and feeling 
that the capital which had been invited into manu- 
factures by former acts of legislation was now en- 
titled to be sustained against the glut of foreign mar- 
kets, fraudulent invoices, and the competition of 
foreign labor working at starvation wages, he gave 
his vote for the bill, and ever afterward supported 
the policy of moderate protection. He has been 
accused of inconsistency in this respect; and by none 
more earnestly than by the friends of Mr. Calhoun, 
who was one of those influential statesmen of the 
South by whom, in the Fourteenth Congress, the 
foundation of a protective tariff was laid on the 
corner-stone of the square-yard duty on domestic 
cotton fabrics. But he was ^sustained by the great 



DANIEL WEBSTER I95 

majority of his constituents and of the people of 
the Northern, Middle, and Northwestern States; 
and should the prospects of success be fulfilled with 
which manufactures have been attempted at the 
South, there is little doubt that she will at length 
perceix'e that her own interest would be promoted 
by upholding the same policy. 

\Mien the speech of Mr. Webster of 1824, in 
which he assigned his reasons for voting against the 
tariff law of that year, is carefully compared with 
his speech of 1828, just referred to, it will be found 
that there is no other diversity than that which 
was induced by the change in the state of the coun- 
try itself in reference to its manufacturing interests, 
and by the course pursued in reference to the details 
of the bill by those opposed to protection iji toto. 



CHAPTER VI 

Election of General Jackson. — Debate on Foot's Resolution. — 
Mr. Hayne's First Speech. — Mr. Webster's First Speech. — 
Reply of ]\Ir. Hayne. — Mr. Webster's Great Speech. — De- 
scription from March's " Reminiscences of Congress." — Re- 
ception throughout the Country. 

In the interval between the two sessions of the 
Twentieth Congress, the Presidential election was 
decided. Mr. Adams and General Jac'kson were the 
opposing candidates; and the latter was chosen by 
a large popular majority; but that there was no 
cordiality among the component elements of the 
party by which General Jackson was elevated to the 
chair was soon quite apparaent. 

The first session of the Twenty-first Congress, 
that of 1829-30, is rendered memorable in the his- 
tory of Mr. Webster, as well as in the parliamentary 
history of the country, by what has been called the 
debate on Foot's resolution, in which Mr. Webster 
delivered the speech which is usually regarded as 
his ablest, and which may probably with truth be 
pronounced the most celebrated speech ever delivered 
in Congress. The great importance of this effort 
will no doubt be considered as a sufficient reason 
for relating somewhat in detail the circumstances 
under which it was made. 

The debate arose in the following manner. 

196 



DANIEL WEBSTER I97 

On the 29th of December, 1829, Mr. Foot, one of 
the Senators from Connecticut, moved the following 
resolution : — 

" Resolved, That the Committee on Public Lands be in- 
gtructed to inquire and report the quantity of public lands re- 
maining unsold within each State and Territory, and whether 
it be expedient to limit for a certain period the sales of the 
public lands to such lands only as have heretofore been offered 
for sale, and are now subject to entry at the ininimum price. 
And, also, whether the office of Surveyor-General, and some of 
the land offices, may not be abolished without detriment to the 
public interest." 

There is no reason to believe that, in bringing 
forward this resolution, Mr. Foot acted in concert 
with any other member of the Senate. When it came 
up for consideration the next day, the mover stated 
that he had been induced to offer the resolution from 
having at the last session examined the report of 
the Commissioner of the Land Office, from which 
it appeared that the quantity of land remaining un- 
sold at the minimum price of one dollar and twenty- 
five cents per acre exceeded seventy-two millions of 
acres ; while it appeared from the commissioner's 
report at this session, that the annual demand was 
not likely to exceed a million of acres at present, 
although of coiu'se it might be expected somewhat 
to increase with the growth of the population. 

This resolution, though one of inquiry only, was 
resisted. It was represented by Mr. Benton of Mis- 
souri as a resolution to inquire into the expediency 
of committing a great injury upon the new States 
of the West. Mr. Holmes of Maine supported the 
resolution, as one of inquiry into an important sub- 



198 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

f 

ject. Mr. Foot disclaimed every purpose unfriendly 
to the West, and at the close of the conversation ( in 
which Mr. Webster took no part), it was agreed 
that the consideration of the resolution should be 
postponed to the nth of January, and made the 
special order of the day for that day. 

When the resolution came up it was discussed by 
Mr. Benton of Missouri and Mr. Holmes of Maine. 
Other members took some part in the debate, and 
then Mr. Hayne of South Carolina commenced a 
speech, which occupied the rest of the day. Mr. 
Hayne was one of the younger members of the 
Senate. He came forward in his native State in 
1 814, when hardly of age, with great cclaf, filled in 
rapid succession responsible offices, and came to the 
Senate of the United States in 1823, with a reputa- 
tion already brilliant, and rapidly increasing. He 
was active and diligent in business, fluent, graceful, 
and persuasive as a debater: of a sanguine and self- 
relying temper ; shrinking from no antagonist, and 
disposed to take the part of a champion. 

Mr. Webster, up to this time, had not participated 
in the debate, which had in fact been rather a point- 
less affair, and was dragging its slow length through 
the Senate, no one knew exactly to what purpose. 
It had as yet assumed no character in which it in- 
vited or required his attention. He was much en- 
gaged at the time in the Supreme Court of the 
United States. Leaving the court-room when the 
court adjourned on Tuesday, the 19th, Mr. Web- 
ster came into the Senate in season to hear the 
greater part of Mr. Hayne's speech; and it was sug- 



DANIEL WEBSTER I99 

gested to him by several friends that an immediate 
answer to Mr. Hayne was due from him. The hne 
of discussion pursued by the Senator from South 
Carohna was such as to recjuire, if not to provoke, 
an immediate answer from the North. Mr. Webster 
accordingly rose when Mr. Hayne took his seat, 
but gave way to a motion for adjournment from Mr. 
Benton. These circumstances will sufficiently show 
how entirely without premeditation, and with what 
preoccupation by other trains of thought, Mr. Web- 
ster was led into this great intellectual conflict. 

He appeared in the Senate the next morning, 
Wednesday, January 20th, and Mr. Foot's resolu- 
tion being called up, was modified, on the suggestion 
of Messrs. Sprague of Maine and Woodbury oi 
New Hampshire, by adding the following clause : — 

" Or whether it be expedient to adopt measures to hasten the 
sales and extend more rapidly the surveys of the public lands." 

Mr. Webster immediately proceeded with the de- 
bate. No elaborate preparation, of course, could 
have been made by him, as the speech of Mr. Hayne, 
to which his reply was mainly directed, was delivered 
the day before. He vindicated the government, 
under its successive administrations, from the gen- 
eral charge of having managed the public lands in 
a spirit of hostility to the Western States. He par- 
ticularly defended New England against the accu- 
sation of hostility to the West. A passage in this 
part of his speech, contrasting Ohio as she was in 
1794 with the Ohio of 1830, will compare advan- 
tageously with any thing in his speeches. In speak- 
ing of the settlement of the West, Mr. Webster in- 



200 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

troduced with just commendation the honored name 
of Nathan Dane, as the author of the Ordinance of 
1787, for the organization and government of the 
territory northwest of the Ohio. He maintained 
that every measure of legislation beneficial to the 
West had been carried in Congress by the aid of 
New England votes, and he closed by an allusion to 
his own course as uniformly friendly to that part 
of the Union. Mr. Benton followed Mr. Webster, 
and commenced a speech in reply. 

The next day, Thursday, the 21st, the subject 
again came up, and it was now evident that the de- 
bate had put on a new character. Its real interest 
and importance were felt to be commencing. Mr. 
Chambers expressed the hope that the Senate would 
consent to postpone the further consideration of 
the resolution till the next ^londay, as Mr. Web- 
ster, who had engaged in the discussion and wished 
to be present when it should be resumed, had press- 
ing engagements out of the house, and could not 
conveniently give his attendance in the Senate before 
Monday. * Mr. Hayne said '' he saw the gentleman 
from Massachusetts in his seat, and presumed he 
could make an arrangement which would enable 
him to be present here, during the discussion to- 
day. He was unwilling that this subject should be 
postponed before he had an opportunity of replying 
to some of the observations which had fallen from 
that gentleman yesterday. He would not deny that 

* Mr. Chambers referred to the case in court just mentioned, 
in which Mr. Webster was engaged, and in which the argument 
had already begun. 



DANIEL WEBSTER 201 

some things had fallen from him which rankled * 
here (touching his breast), from which he would 
desire at once to relieve himself. The gentleman 
had discharged his fire in the presence of the Sen- 
ate. He hoped he would now afford him an oppor- 
tunity of returning the shot." 

The manner in which this was said was not such 
as to soften the harshness of the sentiment. It will 
be difficult, in reverting to Mr. Webster's speech, 
to find either in its substance or spirit any adequate 
grounds for the feeling manifested by Mr. Hayne. 
Nor would it probably be easy in the history of 
Congress to find another case in which a similar act 
of accommodation in the way of postponing a sub- 
ject has been refused, at least on such a ground. Mr. 
Webster, in reply to Mr. Hayne's remark, that he 
wished without delay to return his shot, said, '' Let 
the discussion proceed; I am ready now to receive 
the gentleman's fire." 

Mr. Benton then addressed the Senate for about 
an hour, in conclusion of the speech which he had 
commenced the day before. At the close of Mr. 
Benton's argument, Mr. Bell of New Hampshire 
moved that the further consideration of the subject 
should be postponed till Monday, but the motion 
was negatived. Mr. Hayne then took the floor, and 
spoke for about an hour in reply to Mr. Webster's 
remarks of the preceding day. Before he had con- 
eluded his argument, the Senate adjourned till Mon- 
day. On that day, January the 25th, he spoke for 
two hours and a half, and completed his speech. Mr. 

* Mr. Hayne subsequently disclaimed having used this word. 



202 



AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 



Webster immediately rose to reply, but the day was 
far advanced, and he yielded to a motion for 
adjournment. 

The second speech of Mr. Hayne, to which Mr. 
Webster was now called upon to reply, was still 
more strongly characterized than the first with se- 
verity, not to say bitterness, toward the Eastern 
States. The tone toward Mr. Webster personally 
was not courteous. It bordered on the offensive. It 
was difficult not to find in both of the speeches of 
the Senator from South Carolina the indication of 
a preconceived purpose to hold up New England, 
and Mr. Webster as her most distinguished repre- 
sentative, to public odium. In his second speech, 
Mr. Hayne reaffirmed and urged those constitutional 
opinions which are usually known as the doctrines 
of Nullification ; that is to say, the assumed right 
of a State, when she deems herself oppressed by 
an unconstitutional act of Congress, to declare by 
State ordinance the act of Congress null and void, 
and discharge the citizens of the State from the duty 
of obedience. 

Such being the character of Mr. Hayne's speech, 
Mr. Webster had three objects to accomplish in his 
answer. The first was to repel the personalities 
toward himself, which formed one of the most prom- 
inent features of Wr. Hayne's speech. This object 
was accomplished by a few retaliatory strokes, in 
which the severest sarcasm was so mingled with 
unaffected good humor and manly expostulation, as 
to carry captive the sympathy of the audience. The 
vindication of the Eastern States generally, and of 



DANIEL WEBSTER 203 

Massachusetts in particular, was the second object, 
and was pursued in a still higher strain. When it 
was finished, no one probably regretted more keenly 
than the accomplished antagonist the easy credence 
which he had lent to the purveyors of forgotten 
scandal, some of whom were present, and felt grate- 
ful for their obscurity. 

The third and far the more important object with 
Mr. Webster was the constitutional argument, in 
which he asserted the character of our political sys- 
tem as a government established by the people of the 
United States, in contradistinction to a compact be- 
tween the separate States ; and exposed the fallacy 
of attempting to turn the natural right of revolution 
against the government into a right reserved under 
the Constitution to overturn the government itself. 

Several chapters of the interesting work of Mr. 
March, already referred to,* are devoted to the sub- 
ject of this debate ; and we have thought that we 
could in no way convey to the reader so just and dis- 
tinct an impression of the effect of Mr. Webster's 
speech at the time of its delivery, as by borrowing 
largely from his animated pages. 

" It was on Tuesday, January the 26th, 1830, — a day to be 
hereafter for ever memorable in Senatorial annals, — that the 
Senate resumed the consideration of Foot's resolution. There 
never was before, in the city, an occasion of so much excite- 
ment. To witness this great intellectual contest, multitudes of 
strangers had for two or three days previous been rushing into 
the city, and the hotels overflowed. As early as 9 o'clock of 
this morning, crowds poured into the Capitol, in hot haste ; at 
12 o'clock, the hour of meeting, the Senate-chamber — its gal- 

* Reminiscences of Congress. 



204 



AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 



leries, floor, and even lobbies — was filled to its utmost capacity. 
The very stairways were dark with men, who clung to one an- 
other, like bees in a swarm. 

" The House of Representatives was early deserted, x^n ad- 
journment would have hardly made it emptier. The Speaker, 
it is true, retained his chair, but no business of moment was, 
or could be, attended to. Members all rushed in to hear Mr. 
Webster, and no call of the House or other parliamentary pro- 
ceedings could compel them back. The floor of the Senate 
was so densely crowded, that persons once in could rot get out, 
nor change their position ; in the rear of the Vice-Presidential 
chair, the crowd was particularly intense. Dixon H. Lewis, 
then a Representative from Alabama, became wedged in here. 
From his enormous size, it was impossible for him to move 
without displacing a vast portion of the multitude. Unfor- 
tunately, too, for him, he was jammed in directly behind the 
chair of the Vice-President, where he could not see, and 
hardly hear, the speaker. By slow and laborious efifort. paus- 
ing occasionally to breathe, he gained one of the windows, 
which, constructed of painted glass, flank the chair of the Vice- 
President on either side. Here he paused, unable to make 
more headway. But determined to see Mr. Webster as he 
spoke, with his knife he made a large hole in one of the panes 
of the glass ; which is still visible as he made it. Many were 
so placed as not to be able to see the speaker at all. 

*' The courtesy of Senators accorded to the fairer sex room 
on the floor, — the most gallant of them, their own seats. The 
gay bonnets and brilliant dresses threw a varied and picturesque 
beauty over the scene, softening and embellishing it. 

" Seldom, if ever, has speaker in this or any other country 
had more powerful incentives to exertion; a subject, the deter- 
mination of which involved the most important interests, and 
even duration, of the republic; competitors, unequalled in repu- 
tation, ability, or position ; a name to make still more glorious, 
or lose for ever; and an audience, comprising not only persons 
of this country most eminent in intellectual greatness, but rep- 
resentatives of other nations, where the art of eloquence had 
flourished for ages. All the soldier seeks in opportunity 
was here. 

" Mr. Webster perceived, and felt equal to, the destinies of 
the moment. The very greatness of the hazard exhilarated 



DANIEL WEBSTER 205 

him. His spirits rose with the occasion. He awaited the time 
of onset with a stern and impatient joy. He felt Hke the war- 
horse of the Scriptures, who ' paweth in the valley, and re- 
joiceth in his strength : who goeth on to meet the armed men, — 
who saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha ! and who smelleth the 
battle afar off, the thunder of the captains and the shouting.' 

" A confidence in his own resources, springing from no vain 
estimate of his power, but the legitimate offspring of previous 
severe mental discipline, sustained and excited him. He had 
gauged his opponents, his subject, and himself. 

" He was, too, at this period, in the very prime of manhood. 
He had reached middle age, — an era in the life of man when 
the faculties, physical or intellectual, may be supposed to attain 
their fullest organization and most perfect development. What- 
ever there Vv^as in him of intellectual energy and vitality, the 
occasion, his full life, and high ambition might well bring 
forth. 

" He never rose on an ordinary occasion to address an or- 
dinary audience more self-possessed. There was no tremulous- 
ness in his voice or manner ; nothing hurried, nothing simu- 
lated. The calmness of superior strength was visible every- 
where ; in countenance, voice, and bearing. A* deep-seated 
conviction of the extraordinary character of the emergency, and 
of his ability to control it, seemed to possess him wholly. H 
an observer, more than ordinarily keen-sighted, detected at 
tiVnes something like exultation in his eye, he presumed it 
sprang from the excitement of the moment, and the anticipa- 
tion of victory. 

" The anxiety to hear the speech was so intense, irrepress- 
ible, and universal, that no sooner had the Vice-President as- 
sumed the chair than a motion was made, and unanimously 
carried, to postpone the ordinary preliminaries of Senatorial 
action, and to take up immediately the consideration of the 
resolution. 

" Mr. Webster rose and addressed the Senate. His ex- 
ordium is known by heart everywhere : ' Mr. Pr'^sident, when 
the mariner has been tossed, for many days, in thick weather, 
and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the first 
pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take his 
latitude, and ascertain how far the elements have driven him 
from his true course. Let us imitate this prudence, and, before 



206 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

we float farther on the waves of this debate, refer to the point 
from which we departed, that we may at least be able to con- 
jecture where we now are. I ask for the reading of the reso- 
lution before the Senate.' 

'* There wanted no more to enchain the attention. There 
was a spontaneous, though silent, expression of eager appro- 
bation, as the orator concluded these opening remarks. 



*' Those who had doubted Mr. Webster's ability to cope with 
and overcome his opponents were fully satisfied of their error 
before he had proceeded far in his speech. Their fears soon 
took another direction. When they heard his sentences of 
powerful thought, towering in accumulative grandeur, one 
above the other, as if the orator strove. Titan-like, to reach the 
very heavens them.selvcs. they were giddy with an apprehension 
that he would break down in his flight. They dared not be- 
lieve that genius, learning, and intellectual endowment how- 
ever uncommon, that was simply mortal, could susia-n itself 
long in a career seemingly so perilous. They feared an 
Icarian fall. 



■ What Xcw England heart was there but throbbed with 
vehement, tumultuous, irrepressible emotion, as he dwelt upon 
Xew England NutTerings. New England struggles, and New 
England triumphs during the war of the Revolution? There 
was scarcely a dry eye in the Senate; all hearts were overcome ; 
grave judges and men grown old in dignified life turned aside 
their heads, to conceal the evidences of their emotion. 

" In one corner of the gallery was clustered a group of 
Massachusetts men. They had hung from the first moment 
upon the words of the speaker, with feelings variously but 
always warmly excited, deepening in intensity as he proceeded. 
At first, while the orator was going through his ex'^)rdium, 
they held their breath and hid their faces, mindful of the 
savage attack upon him and New England, and the fearful 
odds against him. her champion ; — as he went deeper into his 
speech, they felt easier: when he turned Hayne's flank on 
Banquo's ghost, they breathed freer and deeper. But now, as 
he alluded to Massachu.setts, their feelings were strained to the 



DANIEL WEBSTER 20/ 

highest tension ; and when the orator, concluding his encomium 
of the land of their birth, turned, intentionally or otherwise, 
his burning eye full upon them, they shed tears like girls! 

" No one who was not present can understand the excitement 
of the scene. No one who was, can give an adequate descrip- 
tion of it. No word-painting can convey the deep, intense 
enthusiasm, the reverential attention, of that vast assembly, 
nor limner transfer to canvas their earnest, eager, awe-struck 
countenances. Though language were as subtile and flexible 
as thought, it still would be impossible to represent the full 
idea of the scene. There is something intangible in an emo- 
tion, which cannot be transferred. The nicer shades of feeling 
elude pursuit. Every description, therefore, of the occasion, 
seems to the narrator himself most tame, spiritless, unjust. 

" The exulting rush of feeling with which he went through 
the peroration threw a glow over his countenance, like inspira- 
tion. Eye, brow, each feature, everj- line of the face, seemed 
touched, as with a celestial fire. 

" The swell and roll of his voice struck upon the ears of the 
spell-bound audience, in deep and melodious cadence, as waves 
upon the shore of the ' far-resounding ' sea. The Miltonic 
grandeur of his words was the fit expression of his thought, 
and raised his hearers up to his theme. His voice, exerted to 
its utmost power, penetrated every recess or corner of the 
Senate, — penetrated even the ante-rooms and stairways, as he 
pronounced in deepest tones of pathos these words of solemn 
significance : ' When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the 
last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the 
broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union ; 
on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent ; on a land rent 
with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood I 
Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the 
gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored 
throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and 
trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased 
or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto, 
no such miserable interrogatory as, 'What is all this worth?' 
nor those other words of delusion and folly, ' Liberty first and 
Union afterwards ' ; but everywhere, spread all over in char- 
acters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they 
float ovei the sea and over the land, and in everv wind under 



208 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every Ameri- 
can heart, — Liberty and Union, now and for ever, one and 

INSEPARABLE ! 

After having spoken about three hours on the 26th 
of January, Mr. Webster gave way for an adjourn- 
ment. He resumed and conckided the speech on the 
following day. During most of the time that he was 
speaking, IVIr. Hayne occupied himself in taking 
notes, and rose to reply at the conclusion of Air. 
Webster's argument. An adjournment was pro- 
posed by one of Mr. Hayne's friends, but he wisely 
determined to terminate all that he intended to say 
on the subject upon the spot. He accordingly ad- 
dressed the Senate for about half an hour upon the 
constitutional question which formed the most im- 
portant portion of ATr. \\^ebster's speech. These re- 
marks of Mr. Hayne were, in the newspaper report, 
expanded into an elaborate argument, which occu- 
pied nineteen pages in the register of Congressional 
debates. When Mr. Hayne sat down, Mr. Webster, 
in turn, rose to make a brief rejoinder. ^' The gen- 
tleman," said he, " has in vain attempted to recon- 
struct his shattered argument " ; and this formida- 
ble exordium was followed up by a brief restatement 
of his own argument, which, for condensation, pre- 
cision, and force, may be referred to as a specimen of 
parliamentary logic never surpassed. The art of 
reasoning on moral questions can go no further. 

Thus terminated the day's great work. In the 
evening the Senatorial champions met at a friend's 
house, and exchanged those courteous salutations 
which mitigate the asperity of political collision, and 



I 



DANIEL WEBSTER 2O9 

prevent the conflicts of party from embittering social 
life. 

The sensation produced by the great debate on 
those who heard it was but the earnest of its effect 
on the country at large. The length of Mr. Web- 
ster's speech did not prevent its being copied into 
the leading newspapers throughout the country. It 
was the universal theme of conversation. Letters of 
acknowledgment and congratulation from the most 
distinguished individuals, from politicians retired 
from active life, from entire strangers, from persons 
not sympathizing with all Mr. Webster's views, from 
distant parts of the Union, were addressed to him 
by every mail. Immense editions of the speech in a 
pamphlet form were called for. It is no exaggera- 
tion to say, that throughout the country Mr. Web- 
ster's speech was regarded, not only as a brilliant 
and successful personal defence and a triumphant 
vindication of New England, but as a complete over- 
throw of the dangerous constitutional heresies wdiich 
had menaced the stability of the Union. 

In this light it was looked upon by a large num- 
ber of the most distinguished citizens of New York, 
who took occasion to offer Mr. Webster the com- 
pliment of a public dinner the following winter. 
Circumstances delayed the execution of their pur- 
pose till some time had elapsed from the delivery of 
the speech, but the recollection of it was vivid, and 
it was referred to by Chancellor Kent, the president 
of the day, as the service especially demanding the 
grateful recognition of the country. After alluding 
to the debate on Foot's resolution and to the char- 

- A. B., VOL. VI. — II 



2IO AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

acter of Mr. Webster's speech, the venerable Chan- 
cellor added : — 

" The consequences of that discussion have been extremely 
beneficial. It turned the attention of the public to the great 
doctrines o'f national rights and national union. Constitutional 
law ceased to remain wrapped up in the breasts, and taught 
only by the responses, of the living oracles of the law. Soc- 
rates was said to have drawn down philosophy from the skies, 
and scattered it among the schools. It may with equal truth 
be said that constitutional law, by means of those senatorial 
discussions and the master genius that guided them, was 
rescued from the archives of our tribunals and the libraries of 
our lawyers, and placed under the eye and submitted to the 
judgment of the American people. Their verdict is with us, 
and from it there lies no appeal.'' * 

With respect to Mr. Foot's resolution it may be 
observed, that it continued before the Senate a long 
time, a standing subject of discussion. At length, 
on the 2 1 St of May, a motion for indefinite postpone- 
ment, submitted by Mr. Webster at the close of his 
first speech, prevailed, and thus the whole discussion 
ended. 



* Chancellor Kent's remarks are given entire in the intro- 
duction to '' Mr. Webster's Speech at the New York Dinner," 
vol. i. p. 194. 



CHAPTER VII 

President Jackson's Administrations. — Speedy Discord among 
the Parties. — Mr. Webster's Relations to the Administration. 
— Veto of the Bank. — Rise and Progress of Nullification in 
South Carolina. — The Force Bill. — Mr. Madison's Letter on 
Secession. — Removal of the Deposits. — Mr. Van Buren's 
Election. — Financial Crisis and Extra Session of Congress. 
— 'Government Plan of Finance. — Mr. Webster's Visit to 
Europe and distinguished Reception. — Presidential Canvass 
of 1840. — Election of General Harrison. 

It would require a volume of ample dimensions to 
relate the history of Mr. Webster's Senatorial career 
from this time till the accession of General Harrison 
to the Presidency, in 1841. In this interval the gov- 
ernment was administered for two successive terms 
by General Jackson, and for a single term by Mr. 
Van Buren. It was a period filled with incidents of 
great importance in various departments of the gov- 
ernment, often of a startling character at the time, 
and not less frequently exerting a permanent in- 
fluence on the condition of the country. It may be 
stated as the general characteristic of the political 
tendencies of this period, that there was a decided 
w^eakening of respect for constitutional restraint. 
Vague ideas of executive discretion prevailed on the 
one hand in the interpretation of the Constitution, 
and of popular sovereignty on the other, as repre- 
sented by a President elevated to office byoverwhelm- 

ing majorities of the people. The expulsion of the 

211 



212 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

Indian tribes from the Southern States, in violation 
of the faith of treaties and in open disregard of the 
opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States 
as to their obHgation ; the claim of a right on the part 
of a State to nullify an act of the General Govern- 
ment; the violation of the charter of the bank, and 
the Presidential veto of the act of Congress rechar- 
tering it ; the deposit of the public money in the 
selected State banks with a view to its safekeeping 
and for the greater encouragement of trade by the 
loan of the public funds ; the explosion of this sys- 
tem, and the adoption of one directly opposed to it, 
which rejected wholly the aid of the banks and de- 
nied the right of the government to employ the pub- 
lic funds for any but fiscal purposes ; the executive 
menaces of war against France ; the unsuccessful 
attempt of Mr. Van Buren's administration to carry 
on the government upon General Jackson's system ; 
the panic of 1837, succeeded by the general uprising 
of the country and the universal demand for a 
change of men and measures, — these are the leading 
incidents in the chronicle of the period in question. 
On some of them Mr. Webster put forth all his 
power. The questions pertaining to the construction 
of the Constitution, to the bank, to the veto power, 
to the currency, to the constitutionality of the tariff, 
to the right of removal from office, and to the 
finances, were discussed in almost every conceivable 
form, and with every variety of argument and 
illustration. 

It has already been observed that General Jackson 
was brought into power by a somewhat ill-compacted 



DANIEL WEBSTER 213 

alliance between his original friends and a portion of 
the friends of the other candidates of 1824. As far 
as Mr. Calhoun and his followers were concerned, 
the cordiality of the union was gone before the in- 
auguration of the new President. There was not 
only on the list of the cabinet to be appointed no 
adequate representative of the Vice-President, but 
his rival candidate for the succession (Mr. Van 
Buren) was placed at the head of the administra- 
tion. There is reason to suppose that General Jack- 
son, who, though his policy tended greatly to impair 
the strength of the Union, was in feeling a warm 
Unionist, witnessed w^ith no dissatisfaction the re- 
sult of the great constitutional debate and its in- 
fluence upon the country. 

In the Twenty-second Congress (the second of 
General Jackson's administration) the bank question 
became prominent. General Jackson had in his first 
message called the attention of Congress to the sub- 
ject of the bank. No doubt of its constitutionality 
was then intimated by him. In the course of a year 
or two an attempt was made, on the part of the 
Executive, to control the appointment of the officers 
of one of the Eastern branches. This attempt was 
resisted by the bank, and from that time forward a 
state of warfare, at first partially disguised, but 
finally open and flagrant, existed between the gov- 
ernment and the directors of the institution. In the 
first session of the Twenty-second Congress (1831- 
32), a bill was introduced by Mr. Dallas, and passed 
the two houses, to renew the charter of the bank. 
This measure w^as supported by Mr. Webster, on the 



214 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

ground of the importance of a national bank to the 
fiscal operations of the government, and to the cur- 
rency, exchange, and general business of the coun- 
try. No specific complaints of mismanagement had 
then been made, nor were any abuses alleged to exist. 
The bank was, almost without exception, popular at 
that time with the business interests of the coun- 
try, and particularly at the South and West. Its 
credit in England was solid ; its bills and drafts on 
London took the place of specie for remittances to 
India and China. Its convenience and usefulness 
were recognized in the report of the Secretary of the 
Treasury (Mr. Lane), at the same time that its con- 
stitutionality was questioned and its existence threat- 
ened by the President. So completely, however, was 
the policy of General Jackson's administration the 
impulse of his own feelings and individual impres- 
sions, and so imperfectly had these been disclosed 
on the present occasion, that the fate of the bill for 
rechartering the bank was a matter of uncertainty 
on the part both of adherents and opponents. Many 
persons on both sides of the two houses were taken 
by surprise by the veto. 

But events of a different complexion soon oc- 
curred, and gave a new direction to the thoughts of 
men throughout the country. The opposition of 
South Carolina to the protective policy had been 
pushed to a point of excitement at which it was be- 
yond the control of party leaders. Although, as we 
have seen, that policy had in 1816 been established 
by the aid of distinguished statesmen of South Caro- 
lina, who saw in the success of American cotton 



DANIEL WEBSTER 21$ 

manufactures a new market for the staple of the 
South, in which it would take the place of the cotton 
of India, the protective policy at a later period had 
come to be generally considered unconstitutional at 
the South. A change of opinion somewhat similar 
had taken place in New England, which had been 
originally opposed to this policy, as adverse to the 
commercial and navigating interests. Experience 
gradually showed that such was not the case. The 
enactment of the law of 1824 was considered as es- 
tablishing the general principle of protection as the 
policy of the country. It was known to be the policy 
of the great central States. The capital of the North 
was to some extent forced into new channels. Some 
branches of manufactures flourished, as skill was 
acquired and improvements in machinery made. 
The coarse cotton fabrics which had enjoyed the pro- 
tection of the minimum duty prospered, manufactur- 
ing villages grew up, the price of the fabric fell, and 
as competition increased the tariff did little more 
than protect the domestic manufacturer from fraudu- 
lent invoices and the fluctuation of foreign markets. 
Thus all parties were benefited, not excepting the 
South, which gained a new customer for her staple. 
These changes in the condition of things led Mr. 
Webster, as we have remarked in a former chapter, 
to modify his course on the tariff question. 

Unfortunately, no manufactures had been estab- 
lished at the South. The vast quantities of new 
and fertile land opened in the west of Georgia, in 
Alabama, and Mississippi, injured the value of the 
old and partly exhausted lands of the Atlantic States. 



2l6 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

Labor was drawn off to found plantations in the new 
States, and the injurious consequences were ascribed 
to the tariff. Considerations of a pohtical nature 
had entirely changed the tolerant feeling which, up 
to a certain period, had been shown by one class of 
Southern politicians toward the protective policy. 
With the exception of Louisiana, and one or two 
votes in Virginia, the whole South was united 
against the tariff. South Carolina had suffered most 
by the inability of her worn lands to sustain the com- 
petition with the lands of the Yazoo and the Red 
River, and to her the most active opposition, under 
the lead of Mr. Calhoun, was confined. The mod- 
ern doctrine of nullification was broached by her ac- 
complished statesmen, and an unsuccessful attempt 
made to deduce it from the Virginia resolutions of 
1798. Mr. Madison, in a letter addressed to the 
writer of these pages,* in August, 1830, firmly re- 
sisted this attempt ; and, as a theory, the whole doc- 
trine of nullification was overthrown by Mr. Web- 
ster, in his speech of the 26th of January, 1830. But 
public sentiment had gone too far in South Carolina 
to be checked ; party leaders were too deeply com- 
mitted to retreat; and at the close of 1832 the ordi- 
nance of nullification was adopted by a State con- 
vention. 

This decisive act roused the hero of New Orleans 
from the vigilant repose with which he had watched 
the coming storm. Confidential orders to hold them- 
selves in readiness for active service were sent in 
every direction to the officers of the army and the 

* North American Review, vol. xxxi, p. 537. 



DANIEL WEBSTER 217 

navy. Prudent and resolute men were quietly sta- 
tioned at the proper posts. Arms and munitions in 
abundance were held in readiness, and a chain of 
expresses in advance of the mail was established 
from the Capitol to Charleston. These preparations 
made, the Presidential proclamation of the nth of 
December, 1832, was issued. It was written by Mr. 
Edward Livingston, then Secretary of State, from 
notes furnished by General Jackson himself; but 
there is not an idea of importance in it which may 
not be found in Mr. Webster's speech on Foot's 
resolution. 

The proclamation of the President was met by 
the counter-proclamation of Governor Hayne; and 
the State of South Carolina proceeded to pass laws 
for carrying the ordinance of nullification into effect, 
and for putting the State into a condition to carry on 
war with the General Government. In this posture 
of affairs the President of the United States laid 
the matter before Congress, in his message of the 
1 6th of January, 1833, ^^'^^ ^^^^ t)ill " further to pro- 
vide for the collection of duties on imports " was in- 
troduced into the Senate, in pursuance of his recom- 
mendations. Mr. Calhoun was at this time a mem- 
ber of that body, having been chosen to succeed Gov- 
ernor Hayne, and having of course resigned the 
office of Vice-President. Thus called, for the first 
time, to sustain in person before the Senate and the 
country the policy of nullification, which had been 
adopted by South Carolina mainly under his influ- 
ence, and which was now threatening the Union, it 
hardly need be said that he exerted all his ability, 



2l8 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

and put forth all his resources, in defence of the 
doctrine which had brought his State to the verge 
of revolution. It is but justice to add, that he met 
the occasion with equal courage and vigor. The 
bill " to make further provision for the collection of 
the revenue," or " Force Bill," as it was called, was 
reported by Mr. Wilkins from the Committee on the 
Judiciary on the 2ist of January, and on the follow- 
ing day Mr. Calhoun moved a series of resolutions, 
affirming the right of a State to annul, as far as her 
citizens are concerned, any act of Congress which 
she may deem oppressive and unconstitutional. On 
the 15th and i6th of February, he spoke at length in 
opposition to the bill, and in development and sup- 
port of his resolutions. On this occasion the doc- 
trine of nullification was sustained by him with far 
greater ability than it had been by General Hayne, 
and in a speech which we believe is regarded as Mr. 
Calhoun's most powerful effort. In closing his 
speech, Mr. Calhoun challenged the opponents of his 
doctrines to disprove them, and warned them, in the 
concluding sentence, that the principles they might 
advance would be subjected to the revision of 
posterity. 

Mr. Webster, before Mr. Calhoun had resumed 
his seat, or he had risen from his own, accepted the 
challenge, and commenced his reply. He began to 
speak as he was rising, and continued to address the 
Senate with great force and effect, for about two 
hours. The Senate then took a recess, and after it 
came together Mr. Webster spoke again, from five 
o'clock till eight in the evening. The speech was 



DANIEL WEBSTER 219 

more purely a constitutional argument than that of 
the 26th of January, 1830. It was mainly devoted 
to an examination of Mr. Calhoun's resolutions; to a 
review of the adoption and ratification of the Con- 
stitution of the United States, by way of elucidating 
the question whether the system provided by the 
Constitution is a government of the people or a com- 
pact between the States; and to a discussion of the 
constitutionality of the tariff. The Senate-chamber 
was thronged to its utmost capacity, both before and 
after the recess, although the streets of Washington, 
owing to the state of the weather at the time, were 
nearly impassable. 

The opinion entertained of this speech by the in- 
dividual who, of all the people of America, was the 
best qualified to estimate its value, may be seen from 
the following letter of Mr. Madison, which has never 
before been published : 

" Montpellier, March 15th, 1833. 
" My dear Sir : — I return my thanks for the copy of your 
late very powerful speech in the Senate of the United States. 
It crushes ' nullification,' and must hasten an abandonment of 
' secession.' But this dodges the blow, by confounding the 
claim to secede at will with the right of seceding from intol- 
erable oppression. The former answers itself, being a violation 
without cause of a faith solemnly pledged. The latter is an- 
other name only for revolution, about which there is no theo- 
retic controversy. Its double aspect, nevertheless, with the 
countenance received from certain quarters, is giving it a popu- 
lar currency here, which may influence the approaching elec- 
tions both for Congress and for the State legislature. It has 
gained some advantage also by mixing itself with the question, 
whether the Constitution of the United States was formed by 
the people or by the States, now under a theoretic discussion 
by animated partisans. 



220 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

" It is fortunate when disputed theories can be decided by 
undisputed facts, and here the undisputed fact is, that the Con- 
stitution was made by the people, but as embodied into the 
several States who were parties to it, and therefore made by 
the States in their highest authoritative capacity. They might, 
by the same authority and by the same process, have converted 
the confederacy into a mere league or treaty, or continued it 
with enlarged or abridged powers ; or have embodied the people 
of their respective States into one people, nation, or sover- 
eignty ; or, as they did, by a mixe^ form, make them one people, 
nation, or sovereignty for certain purposes, and not so for 
others. 

" The Constitution of the United States, being established by 
a competent authority, by that of the sovereign people of the 
several States who were parties to it, it remains only to inquire 
what the Constitution is; and here it speaks for itself. It 
organizes a government into the usual legislative, executive, 
and judiciary departments; invests it with specified powers, 
leaving others to the parties to the Constitution. It makes 
the government like other governments to operate directly on 
the people ; places at its command the needful physical means 
of executing its powers ; and finally proclaims its supremacy, 
and that of the laws made in pursuance of it, over the consti- 
tutions and laws of the States, the powers of the government 
being exercised, as in other elective and responsible govern- 
ments, under the control of its constituents, the people and the 
legislatures of the States, and subject to the revolutionary 
rights of the people, in extreme cases. 

" Such is the Constitution of the United States dc jure and 
de facto, and the name, whatever it be, that may be given to it 
can make it nothing more or less than what it is. 

" Pardon this hasty effusion, which, whether precisely ac- 
cording or not with your ideas, presents, I am aware, none that 

will be new to you. 

" With great esteem and cordial salutations, 

" James Madison. 
" Mr. Webster." 

It may be observed, in reference to the closing 
remark in the above important letter, that the view 
which it presents of the nature of the g'overnment 



DANIEL WEBSTER 22 1 

established by the Constitution is precisely that taken 
by Mr. Webster in the various speeches in which 
the subject is discussed by him. 

The President of the United States felt the impor- 
tance of Mr. Webster's aid in the great constitutional 
struggle of the session. There were men of great 
ability enlisted in support of his administration, 
Messrs. Forsyth, Grundy, Dallas, Rives, and others, 
but no one competent to assume the post of antag- 
onist to the great Southern leader. The general 
political position of Mr. Webster made it in no de- 
gree his duty to sustain the administration in any 
party measure, but the reverse. But his whole 
course as a public man, and all his principles, forbade 
him to act from party motives in a great crisis of the 
country's fortunes. The administration was now 
engaged in a fearful struggle for the preservation of 
the Union, and the integrity of the Constitution. 
The doctrines of the proclamation were the doctrines 
of his speech on Foot's resolution almost to the 
words. He would have been unjust to his most 
cherished principles and his views of public duty had 
he not come to the rescue, not of the administration, 
but of the country, in this hour of her peril. His aid 
was personally solicited in the great debate on the 
^' Force Bill " by a member of the Cabinet, but it was 
not granted till the bill had undergone important 
amendments suggested by him, when it was given 
cordially, w^ithout stint and without condition.* 

* It is not wholly unworthy of remark in this place, as illus- 
trating the dependence on Mr. Webster's aid which was felt 
at the White House, that, on the day of his reply to Mr. Cal- 
houn, the President's carriage was sent to Mr. Webster's lodg- 



222 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

In the recess of Congress in the year 1833, Mr. 
Webster made a short journey to the Middle States 
and the West. He was everywhere the object of the 
most distinguished and respectful attentions. Public 
receptions took place at Buffalo and Pittsburg, 
where, under the auspices of committees of the high- 
est respectability, he addressed immense assem- 
blages convened without distinction of party. Invi- 
tations to similar meetings reached him from many 
quarters, which he was obliged by want of leisure to 
decline. 

The friendly relations into which Mr. Webster 
had been drawn with the President, and the enthu- 
siastic welcome given to the President on his tour 
to the East, in the summer of 1833, awakened jeal- 
ousy in certain quarters. It was believed at the time, 
by well-informed persons, that among the motives 
which actuated some persons in General Jackson's 
confidence, in fanning his hostility to the Bank of 
the United States, was that of bringing forward a 
question of great interest both to the public and the 
President, on which he would be sure to encounter 
Mr. Webster's opposition. 

Such a subject was the removal of the deposits of 
the public moneys from the Bank of the United 
States, a measure productive of more immediate 
distress to the community and a larger train of evil 
consequences than perhaps any similar measure in 
our political history. It was finally determined upon 

ings, as was supposed with a message borne by the President's 
private secretary. Happening to be still at the door when Mr. 
Webster was about to go to the Capitol, it conveyed him to the 
Senate-chamber. 



DANIEL WEBSTER 223 

while the President was on his Northern tour, in the 
summer of 1833, receiving in every part of New 
England those warm demonstrations of respect 
which his patriotic course in the great nullification 
struggle had inspired. It is proper to state, that up 
to this period, in the judgment of more than one 
committee of Congress appointed to investigate its 
affairs, in the opinion of both houses of Congress, 
who in 1832 had passed a bill to renew the charter, 
and of the House of Representatives, which had re- 
solved that the deposits were safe in its custody, the 
affairs of the bank had been conducted with pru- 
dence, integrity, and remarkable skill. It was not 
the least evil consequence of the warfare waged upon 
the bank, that it was finally drawn into a position 
(though not till its Congressional charter expired, 
and it accepted very unwisely a charter as a State 
institution) in which, in its desperate struggle to 
sustain itself, it finally forfeited the confidence of its 
friends and the public, and made a deplorable and 
shameful shipwreck at once of its interests and 
honor, involving hundreds, at home and abroad, in 
its own deserved ruin. 

The second administration of General Jackson, 
which commenced in March, 1833, was principally 
employed in carrying on this war against the bank, 
and in the effort to build up the league of the asso- 
ciated banks into an efficient fiscal agent of the gov- 
ernment. The dangerous crisis of affairs in South 
Carolina had, for the time, passed. The passage of 
the " Force Bill " had vindicated the authority of 
the Constitution as the supreme law of the land, and 



224 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

had armed the President with the needed powers to 
maintain it. On the other hand, the Compromise 
Bill of Mr. Clay, providing for the gradual reduc- 
tion of all duties to one uniform rate of twenty per 
cent., was accepted by Mr. Calhoun and his friends 
as a practical concession, and furnished them the 
opportunity of making what they deemed a not dis- 
creditable retreat from the attitude of military re- 
sistance in which they had placed the State. Re- 
garding this bill in the light of a concession to un- 
constitutional menace, as tending to the eventual 
prostration of all the interests which had grown up 
under the system so long pursued by the govern- 
ment, Mr. AV^ebster felt himself compelled to with- 
hold from it his support. He rejoiced, however, in 
the concurrence of events which had averted the 
dread appeal to arms that seemed at one time una- 
voidable. 

It would occupy an unreasonable space to dwell 
upon every public measure before Congress at this 
session ; but there is one which cannot with propriety 
be passed over, as it drew forth from Mr. Webster 
an argument not inferior to his speech on the " Force 
Bill." A resolution, originally moved by Mr. Clay, 
expressing disapprobation of the removal of the de- 
posits from the bank, was, after material amend- 
ments, adopted by the Senate. This resolution led 
to a formal protest from the President, communi- 
cated to the Senate on the 15th of April, 1834. 
Looking upon the resolution referred to as one, of 
expediency, it is probable that Mr. Webster did not 
warmly favor, though, with Mr. Calhoun, he con- 



DANIEL WEBSTER 22 5 

curred In, Its passage. The protest of the President, 
however, placed the subject on new ground. Mr. 
\Vebster considered it as an encroachment on the 
constitutional rights of the Senate, and as a denial 
to that body of the freedom of action which the 
executive claimed so earnestly for itself. He ac- 
cordingly addressed the Senate on the 7th of May, 
in a speech of the highest ability, in which the doc- 
trines of the protest were subjected to the severest 
scrutiny, and the constitutional rights and duties of 
the Senate asserted with a force and spirit worthy 
of the important position occupied by that body in 
the frame of the government. This speech will be 
ever memorable for that sublime passage on the ex- 
tent of the power of England, which will be quoted 
with admiration wherever our language is spoken 
and while England retains her place in the family of 
nations. 

At the same session of Congress, Mr. Webster 
spoke frequently on the presentation of memorials, 
which were poured in upon him from every part of 
the country, in reference to the existing distress. 
These speeches were of necessity made, in almost 
every case, with little or no preparation, but many 
of them contain expositions of the operation of the 
financial experiment instituted by General Jackson, 
which will retain a permanent value in our political 
history. Some of them are marked by bursts of the 
highest eloquence. The entire subject of the cur- 
rency was also treated with great ability by Mr. 
Webster, in a report made at this session of Con- 
gress from the committee of the Senate on finance, 

A. B., VOL. VI. — 15 



226 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

of which he was chairman. Few documents more 
skilfully digested or powerfully reasoned proceeded 
from his pen. 

The same topics substantially occupied the atten- 
tion of the Senate at the Twenty-fourth as at the 
Twenty-third Congress. The principal subjects dis- 
cussed pertained to the currency. The specie circular 
and the distribution of the surplus revenue were 
among the prominent measures. A motion made in 
the Senate to expunge from its records the resolution 
of March, 1834, by which the Senate expressed its 
disapprobation of the removal of the deposits, drew 
forth from Mr. Webster, on behalf of himself and 
his colleague, a protest against that measure, of sin- 
gular earnestness and power. Committed to writ- 
ing, and read with unusual solemnity, it produced 
upon the Senate an effect which is still remembered 
and spoken of. Every word in it is weighed as in a 
balance. 

The administration of General Jackson was draw- 
ing to a close; Mr. Van Buren had been chosen to 
succeed him in November, 1836. In the month of 
February following, upon an invitation from a large 
committee of merchants, professional men, and citi- 
zens generally of New York, given some months pre- 
vious, Mr. Webster attended one of those great pub- 
lic meetings which he has been so often called to 
address. His speech on this occasion, delivered in 
Niblo's Saloon on the 15th of March, 1837, is one 
of the most important of his utterances of General 
Jackson's policy, and closed with a prediction of the 
impending catastrophe. After the adjournment of 



DANIEL WEBSTER 22/ I 

i 

Congress, Mr. Webster made a hasty tour to the j 

West, in the course of which he addressed large pub- | 

He meetings at Wheehng in Virginia, at Madison in 
Indiana, and at other places. The coincidence of | 

passing events with all his anticipations of the cer- j 

tain effects of the administration policy gave pecul- ; 

iar force to these addresses. It is to be regretted 
that these speeches appear from inadequate reports ; 
of some of the speeches made by him on this tour, 
no notes were taken. | 

Such was the financial embarrassment induced by ' 

the explosion of the system of the late administra- 
tion, that President Van Buren's first official act was \ 
a proclamation for an extra session of Congress, to 
be held in September, 1837. At this session the new | 
government plan of finance, usually called " the 
Sub-treasury system," was brought forward. It- was ; 
the opinion of Mr. Webster, that the rigid enforce- | 
ment by the government of a system of specie pay- ' 
ments in all its public receipts and expenditures was \ 
an actual impossibility, in the present state of things j 
in this country and the other commercial countries I 
of the civilized world. The attempt to reject alto- 
gether the aid of convertible paper, of bills of ex- 
change, of drafts, and other substitutes for the use 1 
and transportation of the precious metals, must fail 
in practice in a commercial country, where the great j 
mass of the business affairs of the community are 
transacted with their aid. If the attempt could be | 
forced through, it would be like an attempt on the , 
part of the government to make use of the ancient 
modes of travel and conveyance, while every citizen 



228 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

in his private affairs enjoyed the benefit of steam 
navigation and railways. Mr. Webster accordingly 
opposed the sub-treasury project from its inception; 
and it failed to become a law at the extra session of 
Congress in 1837. 

During the debate one of Mr. Calhoun's speeches 
called upon Mr. Webster for a rejoinder, which was 
made by him on the 12th of March. It is the most 
elaborate and effective of Mr. Webster's speeches on 
the subject of the currency. The constitutional right 
of the General Government to employ a convertible 
paper in its fiscal transactions, and to make use of 
banks in the custody and transmission of its funds, 
is argued in this speech with much ability, from the 
necessity of the case, from the contemporaneous ex- 
positions of the Constitution, from the practice of 
the government under every administra.tion, from 
the expressed views and opinions of every President 
of the United States, including General Jackson, 
and from the often-declared opinions of all the lead- 
ing statesmen of the country, not excepting Mr. 
Calhoun himself, whose course in this respect was 
reviewed by Mr. Webster somewhat at length, and 
in such a way as unavoidably to suggest the idea of 
inconsistency, although no such charge was made. 

To some portions of this speech Mr. Calhoun re- 
plied a few weeks afterward, and sought to ward 
off the comments upon his own course in reference 
to this class of questions, by some severe strictures 
on that of Mr. Webster, which drew from that gen- 
tleman a prompt and spirited rejoinder. 

This is the only occasion during the long political 
lives of these distinguished statesmen, begun nearly 



DANIEL WEBSTER 229 

at the same time, and continued through a Congres- 
sional career which brought them of necessity much 
in contact with each other, in which there was any 
approach to personahty in their keen encounters. In 
fact, of all the highly eminent public men of the day, 
they are the individuals who have made the least 
use of the favorite w^eapon of ordinary politicians, 
personality toward opponents. On the decease of 
Mr. Calhoun at Washington, in the spring of 1850, 
their uninterrupted friendly relations were alluded to 
by Mr. Webster in cordial and affecting terms. He 
regarded Mr. Calhoun as decidedly the ablest of the 
public men to whom he had been opposed in the 
course of his political life. 

These kindly feelings on Mr. Webster's part were 
fully reciprocated by Mr. Calhoun. He is known to 
have declared on his death-bed, that, of all the public 
men of the day, there was no one whose political 
course had been more strongly marked by a strict 
regard to truth and honor than Mr. Webster's. 

In the spring of 1839, Mr. Webster crossed the 
Atlantic for the first time in his life, making a hasty 
tour through England, Scotland, and France. His 
attention was particularly drawn to the agriculture 
of England and Scotland; to the great subjects of 
currency and exchange ; to the condition of the labor- 
ing classes ; and to the practical effect on the politics 
of Europe of the system of the Continental alliance. 
No traveller from this country has probably ever 
been received with equal attention in the highest 
quarters in England. Courtesies usually paid only 
to ambassadors and foreign ministers were extended 
to him. His table was covered with invitations to 



230 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

the seats of the nobihty and gentry; and his com- 
pany was eagerly sought at the pubhc entertainments 
which took place while he was in the country. 
Among the distinguished individuals with whom he 
contracted intimate relations of friendship, the late 
Lord Ashburton may be particularly mentioned. A 
mutual regard of more than usual warmth arose be- 
tween them. This circumstance was well understood 
in the higher circles of English society, and when, 
two years later, a change of administration in both 
countries brought the parties to which they were 
respectively attached into power, the friendly rela- 
tions well known to exist between them were no 
doubt among the motives which led to the appoint- 
ment of Lord Ashburton as special minister to the 
United States. 

Toward that great political change which was 
consummated in 1840, by which General Harrison 
was raised to the Presidency, no individual probably 
in the country had contributed more largely than 
Mr. Webster; and this by powerful appeals to the 
reason of the people. His speeches had been for 
years a public armory, from which weapons both of 
attack and defence were furnished to his political 
friends throughout the Union. The financial policy 
of the two preceding administrations was the chief 
cause of the general discontent which prevailed ; and 
it is doing no injustice to the other eminent leaders 
of opposition in the several States to say, that by 
none of them had the vices of this system from the 
first been so laboriously and effectively exposed as 
by Mr. Webster. 



CHAPTER VIII 

Critical State of Foreign Affairs. — Mr. Webster appointed to 
the State Department. — Death of President Harrison. — Em- 
barrassed Relations with England. — The Northeastern Boun- 
dary. — Other Subjects of Negotiation. — Extradition. — Sup- 
pression of the Slave-Trade. — Affair of the Caroline. — Im- 
pressment, etc. — China. — The Sandwich Islands. — Mexico. — 
Mr. Webster's Services as Secretary of State. 

The condition of affairs in the United States, on 
the accession of President Harrison to office, in the 
spring- of 1841, was difficult and critical, especially 
as far as the foreign relations of the country were 
concerned. Ancient and modern controversies ex- 
isted with England, which seemed to defy adjust- 
ment. The great question of the northwestern boun- 
dary had been the subject of negotiation almost ever 
since the peace of 1783. Every effort to settle it had 
but increased the difficulties with which it was beset, 
by exhausting the expedients of diplomacy. The 
Oregon question was rapidly assuming a formidable 
aspect, as emigrants began to move into the country 
in dispute. Not less serious was the state of affairs 
on the southwestern frontier, where, although a colli- 
sion with Mexico might not in itself be an event to be 
viewed with great anxiety, it was probable, as things 
then stood, that it would have brought a war with 

Great Britain in its train. 

231 



2 32 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

Such was the state of things when General Harri- 
son acceded to the Presidency, after perhaps the 
most strenuously contested election ever known, and 
by a larger popular vote than had ever before been 
given in the United States. As soon as the result 
was known, the President elect addressed a letter to 
Mr. Webster, offering him any place he might choose 
in his Cabinet, and asking his advice as to the other 
members of which it should be composed. Averse 
to the daily drudgery of the Treasury, Mr. Webster 
gave his preference to the Department of State, 
without concealing from himself that it might be the 
post of greater care and responsibility. 

But the death of the new President, when just 
entering upon the discharge of his duties, changed 
the state of affairs in this respect. The great na- 
tional party which had called him to the helm was 
struck with astonishment. No rallying-point pre- 
sented itself. A position of things existed, not over- 
looked, indeed, by the sagacious men who framed 
the Constitution, but which, from its very nature, 
can never enter practically into the calculations of 
the enthusiastic multitudes by which, in times of 
difficulty and excitement, a favorite candidate is 
borne to the chair. How much of the control which 
it would otherwise have possessed over public 
opinion could be retained by an administration thus 
unexpectedly deprived of its head, was a question 
which time alone could settle. Plappil}^ as far as our 
foreign relations were concerned, a character had 
been assumed by the administration, from the very 
formation of General Harrison's Cabinet, which was 



DANIEL WEBSTER 233 

steadily maintained, till the adjustment of the most 
difficult points in controversy was effected by the 
treaty of Washington. President Harrison, as is 
well known, lived but one month after his inaugura- 
tion, but all the members of his Cabinet remained 
in office under Mr. Tyler, who succeeded to the 
Presidency. With him, of course, rested the general 
authority of regulating and directing the negotia- 
tions with foreign powers, in which the government 
might be engaged. But the active management of 
these negotiations was in the hands of the Secretary 
of State, and it is believed that no difference of 
views in regard to important matters arose between 
him and Mr. Tyler. For the result of the principal 
negotiation, Mr. Tyler manifested great anxiety; 
and Mr. Webster has not failed, in public or private, 
to bear witness to the intelligent and earnest atten- 
tion which was bestowed by him on the proceedings, 
through all their stages, and to express his sense of 
the confidence reposed in himself by the head of the 
administration, from the beginning to the end of 
the transactions. 

If the position of things was difficult here, it was 
not less so on the other side of the Atlantic ; indeed, 
many of the causes of embarrassment were common 
to the two countries. There, as here, the corre- 
spondence, whether conducted at Washington or 
London, had of late years done nothing toward an 
amicable settlement of the great questions at issue. 
Tt had degenerated into an exercise of diplomatic 
logic, with the effect, in England as well as in Amer- 
ica, of strengthening each party in the belief of its 



2 34 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

own rights, and of working up the public mind to 
a reluctant feeHng that the time was at hand when 
those rights must be maintained by force. 

While this was the state of affairs with reference 
to the immediate relations of the two countries, 
Lord Palmerston was urging France into a coopera- 
tion with the four other leading powers of Europe 
in the adoption of a policy, by the negotiation of the 
quintuple treaty, which would have left the United 
States in a position of dangerous insulation on the 
subject of the great maritime question of the day. 

At this juncture, a change of administration oc- 
curred in England, subsequent but by a few months 
to that which had taken place in the government 
of the United States. Lord Melbourne's govern- 
ment gave way to that of Sir Robert Peel in the 
summer of 1841 ; it remained to be seen with what 
influence on the relations of the two countries. 

From his first entrance on office as Secretary of 
State, Mr. Webster, long familiar with the per- 
plexed history of the negotiation relative to the 
boundary between Canada and the United States, 
had perceived the necessity of taking a ''new de- 
parture." 

Early in the summer of 1841, Mr. Webster had 
intimated to Mr. Fox, the British Minister at Wash- 
ington, that the American government was prepared 
to consider, and, if practicable, adopt, a conven- 
tional line, as the only mode of cutting the Gordian 
knot of the controversy. This overture was, of 
course, conveyed to London. Though not leading 
to any result on the part of the ministry just going 



DANIEL WEBSTER 235 

out of office, it was embraced by their successors in 
the same wise and concihatory spirit in which it 
had been made. On the 26th of December, 1841, 
a note was addressed by Lord Aberdeen to Mr. Ev- 
erett, inviting him to an interview on the following 
day, when he communicated the purpose of the Brit- 
ish government to send a special mission to the 
United States, Lord Ashburton being the person 
selected as minister, and furnished with full powers 
to settle every question in controversy. 

This step on the part of the British government 
was as bold as it was wise. It met the difficulty in 
the face. It justly assumed the existence of a cor- 
responding spirit of conciliation on the part of the 
United States, and of a desire to bring matters to 
a practical result. It was bold, because it was the 
last expedient for an. amicable adjustment, and be- 
cause its failure must necessarily lead to very serious 
and immediate consequences. 

In his choice of a minister, Lord Aberdeen was 
not less fortunate than he had been wise in propos- 
ing the measure. Lord Ashburton was above the 
reach of the motives which influence politicians of 
an ordinary stamp, and unencumbered by the habits 
of routine which belong to men regularly trained 
in a career. He possessed a weight of character 
at home which made him independent of the vulgar 
resorts of popularity. He was animated by a kindly 
feeling, and bound by kindly associations to this 
country. There was certainly no public man in Eng- 
land who united in an equal degree the confidence 
of his own government and country with those 



236 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

claims to the good-will of the opposite party, which 
were scarcely less essential to success. The relations 
of personal friendship contracted by Mr. Webster 
with Lord Ashburton in 1839 have already been 
alluded to, as influencing the selection. They de- 
cided Lord Ashburton in accepting the appointment. 
The writer was informed by Lord Ashburton him- 
self, that he should have despaired of bringing mat- 
ters to a settlement advantageous to both countries, 
but for his reliance on the upright and honorable 
character of the American Secretary. 

With the appointment of Lord Ashburton, the 
discussion of the main questions in controversy be- 
tween the two countries, as far as it had been carried 
on in London, was transferred to Washington. But 
as an earnest of the conciliatory spirit which bore 
sway in the British counsels, Lord Aberdeen had 
announced to Mr. Everett, in the interval which 
elapsed between Lord Ashburton' s appointment and 
his arrival at his place of destination, that the 
Queen's government admitted the wrong done by» 
the detention of the Tigris and Scamew in the 
African waters, and was prepared to indemnify 
their owners for the losses sustained. 

The first step taken by Mr. Webster, after receiv- 
ing the directions of the President in reference to 
the negotiation, was to invite the cooperation of 
Massachusetts and Maine, the territory in dispute 
being the property of the two States, and under the 
jurisdiction of the latter. The extent of the treaty- 
making power of the United States, in a matter of 
such delicacy as the cession of territory claimed by 



DANIEL WEBSTER 237 

a State to be within its limits, belongs to the more 
difficult class of constitutional doctrines. 

Massachusetts had anticipated the necessity of the 
measure, and made provision for the appointment 
of commissioners. The legislature of Maine was 
promptly convened for the same purpose by the late 
Governor Fairfield. Four parties were thus in pres- 
ence at Washington for the management of the 
negotiation : the United States and Great Britain, 
Massachusetts and Maine. Recollecting that the 
cpiestion to be settled was one which had defied all 
the arts of diplomacy for half a century, it seemed 
to a distant, and especially a European observer, as 
if the last experiment, exceeding every former step 
in its necessary complication, was destined to a fail- 
ure proportionately signal and ignominious. The 
course pursued by the American Secretary, in mak- 
ing the result of the negotiation relative to the boun- 
dary contingent upon the approval of the State 
commissioners, was regarded in Europe as decidedly 
ominous of its failure. 

It undoubtedly required a high degree of political 
courage thus to put the absolute control of the sub- 
ject, to a certain extent, out of the hands of the 
National Government; but it was a courage fully 
warranted by the event. It is now evident that this 
mode of procedure was the only one which could 
have been adopted with any hope of success. 
Though complicated in appearance, it was in reality 
the simplest mode in which the cooperation of the 
States 'could have been secured. 

The fate of the negotiation might be considered 



238 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

as involved in the success of this appeal to the Chief 
Magistrate of Maine, and through him to his con- 
stituents. It is said that, when Mr. Webster heard 
that the legislature of Elaine had adopted the reso- 
lutions for the commission, he went to President 
Tyler and said, with evident satisfaction and some 
animation. "The crisis is past! " 

It was, in truth, an adjustment equally honorable 
and advantageous to all parties. There is not an 
individual of common sense or common conscience 
in Maine or Massachusetts, in the United States 
or Great Britain, who would now wish it disturbed. 
It took from Maine a tract of land northwest of the 
St. John, which the people of Maine believed to 
belong to them under the treaty of 1783. But the 
disputed title to the worthless tract of morass, heath, 
and rock, covered with snow or fog throughout a 
great part of the year, was not ceded gratuitously. 
We obtained the navigation of the St. John, the 
natural outlet of the whole country, without which 
the territory watered by it would have been of com- 
paratively little value; we obtained a good natural 
boundary as far as the course of the river was fol- 
lowed ; and we established the line which we claimed 
at the head of the Connecticut, on Lake Champlain, 
and on the upper lakes; territorial objects of con- 
siderable interest. Great Britain had equal reason 
to be satisfied with the result. For her the territory 
northwest of the St. John, worthless to us, had a 
geographical and political value; it gave her a con- 
venient connection between her provinces, which 
was all she desired. Both sides gained the only ob- 



DANIEL WEBSTER 239 

ject which really was of importance to either, a set- 
tlement by creditable means of a wearisome na- 
tional controversy; an honorable escape from the 
scourge and curse of war. 

Besides the convenience of such an understanding 
on the part of the two great commercial countries, 
from which language, personal appearance, and 
manners render mutual escape so easy, the condition 
of the frontier of the United States and Canada was 
such as to make this provision all but necessary for 
the preservation of the peace of the two countries 

Another difficult question settled in this adjust- 
ment was that of the extradition of fugitives from 
justice, and the stipulations for extradition in the 
treaty of Washington appear to have served as a 
model for those since entered into between the most 
considerable European powers. A convention for 
the same purpose was concluded between England 
and France on the 13th of February, 1843, and 
other similar compacts have still more recently been 
negotiated. Between the United States and Great 
Britain the operation of this part of the treaty has 
been, in all ordinary cases, entirely satisfactory. 
Persons charged with the crimes to which its pro- 
visions extend have been mutuallv surrendered ; and 
the cause of public justice, and in many cases im- 
portant private interests, have been materially 
served on both sides of the water. 

Not inferior in importance and delicacy to the 
other subjects provided for by the treaty was that 
which concerned the measures for the suppression 
of " the slave-trade " on the coast of Africa. In 



240 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

order to understand the difficulties with which Mr. 
Webster had to contend on this subject, a brief his- 
tory of the question must be given. The law of 
nations, as understood and expounded by the most 
respectable authorities and tribunals, European and 
American, recognizes the right of search of neutral 
vessels in time of war, by the public ships of the 
belligerents. It recognizes no right of search in 
time of peace. It makes no distinction between a 
right of visitation and a right of search. To com- 
pel a trading-vessel, against the will of her com- 
mander, to come to and be boarded, for any purpose 
whatsoever, is an exercise of the right of search 
which the law of nations concedes to belligerents for 
certain purposes. To do this in time of peace, under 
whatever name it may be excused or justified, is to 
perform an act of mere power, for which the law of 
nations affords no warrant. The moral quality of 
the action, and the estimate formed of it, will of 
course depend upon circumstances, motives, and 
manner. If an armed ship board a vessel under rea- 
sonable suspicion that she is a pirate and when there 
is no other convenient mode of ascertaining that 
point, there would be no cause of blame, although 
the suspicion turned out to be groundless. 
■ The British government, for the praiseworthy 
purpose of putting a stop to the traffic in slaves, has 
at different times entered into conventions with sev- 
eral of the states of Europe authorizing a mutual 
right of search of the trading-vessels of each con- 
tracting party by the armed cruisers of the other 
party. These treaties give no right to search the 



DANIEL WEBSTER 241 

vessels of nations not parties to them. But if an 
armed ship of either party should search a vessel of 
a third power under a reasonable suspicion that she 
belonged to the other contracting party, and was 
pursuing the slave-trade in contravention of the 
treaty, this act of power, performed by mistake, and 
with requisite moderation and circumspection in the 
manner, would not be just ground of offence. It 
would, however, authorize a reasonable expectation 
of indemnification on behalf of the private individ- 
uals who might suffer by the detention, as in other 
cases of injury inflicted on innocent persons by pub- 
lic functionaries acting with good intentions, but at 
their peril. 

The government of the United States, both in its 
executive and legislative branches, has at almost all 
times manifested an extreme repugnance to enter 
into conventions for a mutual right of search. It 
has not yielded to any other power in its aversion 
to the slave-trade, which it was the first government 
to denounce as piracy. The reluctance in question 
grew principally out of the injuries inflicted upon 
the American commerce, and still more out of the 
personal outrages in the impressment of American 
seamen, which took place during the wars of Napo- 
leon, and incidentally to the belligerent right of 
search and the enforcement of the Orders in Council 
and the Berlin and Milan Decrees. Besides a whole- 
sale confiscation of American property, hundreds of 
American seamen were impressed into the ships of 
war of Great Britain. So deeply had the public 
sensibility been wounded on both points, that any 

A. B., VOL. VI. — 16 



242 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

extension of the right of search by the consent of the 
United States was for a long time nearly hopeless. 

But this feeling, strong and general as it was, 
yielded at last to the detestation of the slave-trad©. 
Toward the close of the second administration of 
Mr. Monroe the Executive had been induced, acting 
under the sanction of resolutions of the two houses 
of Congress, to agree to a convention with Great 
Britain for a mutual right of search of vessels sus- 
pected of being engaged in the traffic. 

In defining the limits within which this right 
should be exercised, the coasts of America were in- 
cluded. The Senate were of opinion that such a pro- 
vision might be regarded as an admission that the 
slave-trade was carried on between the coasts of 
Africa and the United States, contrary to the known 
fact, and to the reproach either of the will or power 
of the United States to enforce their laws, by which 
it was declared to be piracy. It also placed the whole 
coast of the Union under the surveillance of the 
cruisers of a foreign power. The Senate, accord- 
ingly, ratified the treaty, with an amendment ex- 
empting the coasts of the United States from the 
operation of the article. They also introduced other 
amendments of less importance. 

On the return of the treaty to London thus amend- 
ed, Mr. Canning, the British Foreign Secretary, 
gave way to a feeling of dissatisfaction at the course 
pursued by the Senate, not so much on account of 
any decided objection to the amendment in itself 
considered, as to the claim of the Senate to introduce 
any change into a treaty negotiated according to in- 



DANIEL WEBSTER 243 

structions. Under the influence of this feehng, Mr. 
Canning refused to ratify the treaty as amended, 
and no further attempt was at that time made to 
renew the negotiation. 

After the treaty with Portugal, in 1838, the ves- 
sels of that country, which, with those of Spain, 
were most largely engaged in the traffic, began to 
assume the flag of the United States as a protection ; 
and in many cases, also, although the property of 
vessels and cargo had, by collusive transfers on the 
African coast, become Spanish or Portuguese, the 
vessels had been built and fitted out in the United 
States, and too often, it may be feared, with Amer- 
ican capital. Vessels of this description were pro- 
vided with two sets of papers, to be used as occasion 
might require. 

Had nothing further been done by British cruis- 
ers than to board and search these vessels, whether 
before or after a transfer of this kind, no complaint 
would probably have been made by the government 
of the United States. But, as many American ves- 
sels were engaged in lawful commerce on the coast 
of Africa, it frequently happened that they were 
boarded by British cruisers, not always under the 
command of discreet oflicers. Some voyages were 
broken up, oflicers and men occasionally ill-treated, 
and vessels sent to the United States or Sierra Leone 
for adjudication. 

In 1840 an agreement was made between the ofli- 
cers in command of the British and American squad- 
rons respectively, sanctioning a reciprocal right of 
search on the coast of Africa. It was a well-meant, 



244 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

but unauthorized ">tep, and was promptly disavowed 
by the administration of Mr. Van Buren. Its opera- 
tion, while it lasted, was but to increase the existing 
difficulty. Reports of the interruptions experienced 
by our commerce in the African waters began 
greatly to multiply; and there was a strong interest 
on the part of those surreptitiously engaged in the 
traffic to give them currency. A deep feeling began 
to be manifested in the country ; and the correspond- 
ence between the American Minister in London and 
Lord Palmerston, in the last days of the Melbourne 
ministry, was such as to show that the controversy 
had reached a critical point. Such was the state of 
the question when Air. Webster entered the Depart- 
ment of State* 

The controversy was transmitted, as we have seen, 
to the new administrations on both sides of the 
water, but soon assumed a somewhat modified char- 
acter. The quintuple treaty, as it was called, was 
concluded at London, on the 20th of December, 
1 84 1, by' England, France, Austria, Prussia, and 
Russia; and information of that fact, as we have 
seen above, was given by Lord Aberdeen to Mr. 
Everett the same day. A strong desire was inti- 
mated that the United States would join this asso- 
ciation of the great powers, but no formal invitation 
for that purpose was addressed to them. But the 
recent occurrences on the coast of Africa, and the 
tone of the correspondence above alluded to, had 
increased the standing repugnance of the United 
States to the recognition of a right of search in time 
of peace. 



DANIEL WEBSTER 24S 

The preceding sketch of the history of the ques- 
tion will show the dit^culty of the position in refer- 
ence to this most important interest, at the time 
Lord Ashburton's mission was instituted. With 
what practical good sense and high statesmanship 
the controversy was terminated is well k^pwn to the 
country. 

The wisdom with which the eighth article of the 
treaty was drawn up was soon seen in its conse- 
quences. Its effect was decisive. It put a stop to all 
discontent at home in reference to the interruption of 
our lawful commerce on the coast of Africa. 

The three subjects on which we have dwelt, name- 
ly, the northeastern boundary, the extradition of 
fugitives, and the suppression of the slave-trade, 
were the only ones which required to be provided for 
by treaty stipulation. Other subjects, scarcely less 
important and fully as difficult, were happily dis- 
posed of in the correspondence of the plenipoten- 
tiaries. 

Some disappointment was probably felt, when the 
treaty of Washington was published, that a settle- 
ment of the Oregon question was not included 
among its provisions. It need not be said that a sub- 
ject of such magnitude did not escape the attention 
of the negotiators. It was, however, speedily in- 
ferred by Mr. Webster, from the purport of his 
formal conferences with Lord Ashburton on this 
point, that an arrangement of this question was not 
then practicable, and that to attempt it would be to 
put the entire negotiation to great risk of failure. 
On the other hand, it was not less certain that, by 



246 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

closing up the other matters in controversy, the best 
preparation was made for bringing the Oregon dis- 
pute to an amicable issue, whenever circumstances 
should favor that undertaking. Considerable firm- 
ness was no doubt required to act upon this policy, 
and to forego the attempt, at least, to settle a ques- 
tion rapidly growing into the most formidable mag- 
nitude. It is unnecessary to say how completely the 
course adopted has been justified by the event 

We have in the preceding remarks confined our- 
selves to the topics connected with the treaty of 
Washington. But other subjects of great impor- 
tance connected with the foreign affairs of the coun- 
try engaged the attention of Mr. Webster as Secre- 
tary of State. 

The first of these pertained to our controversies 
with Mexico, and was treated in a letter to M. de 
Bocanegra, the Mexican Secretary of State and For- 
eign Relations. Under the head of " Relations with 
Spain " there was a correspondence of great interest 
between the Chevalier d'Argai'z, the representative 
of that government, and Mr. W^ebster, on the sub- 
ject of the " Amistad." The pertinacity with which 
this matter was pursued by Spain, after its adjudica- 
tion by the Supreme Court of the United States, fur- 
nishes an instructive commentary upon the sincerity 
of that government in its measures for the abolition 
of the slave-trade. 

Of still greater interest are the institution of the 
mission to China, and the steps which led to the es- 
tablishment of the independence of the Sandwich 



DANIEL WEBSTER 247 

Islands. At any period less crowded with impor- 
tant events the opening of diplomatic relations with 
China, and the conclusion of a treaty of commerce 
with that power, would have been deemed occur- 
rences of unusual importance. It certainly reflects 
great credit on the administration, that it acted with 
such promptitude and efficiency in seizing this oppor- 
tunity of multiplying avenues of commercial inter- 
course. Nor is less praise due to the energy and 
skill of the negotiator, Mr. Gushing, to whom this 
novel and important undertaking was confided, un- 
der instruction from Mr. Webster, and who was 
able to embark from China, on his return home- 
ward, in six months after his arrival, having in the 
mean time satisfactorily concluded the treaty. 

The application of the representatives of the Sand- 
wich Islands to the government of the United States, 
and the countenance extended to them at Washing- 
ton, exercised a most salutary and seasonable influ- 
ence over the destiny of those islands. The British 
government was promptly made aware of the course 
pursued by the United States, and was no doubt led, 
in a considerable degree, by this circumstance, to 
promise the Hawaiian delegates, on the part of Eng- 
land, to respect the independent neutrality of their 
government. In the mean time the British admiral 
on that station had taken provisional possession of 
them on behalf of his government, in anticipation of 
a similar movement which was expected on the part 
of France. If intelligence of this occurrence had 
been received in London before the promise above 
alluded to was given by Lord Aberdeen to Messrs. 



248 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

Richards and Haallllo, it is not impossible that Great 
Britain might have felt herself warranted in retain- 
ing the protectorate of the Hawaiian Islands as an 
offset for the occupation of Tahiti by the French. 
As it was, the temporary arrangement of the British 
admiral was disavowed, and the government re- 
stored to the native chief. 

There was also a correspondence between Mr. 
Webster and the Portuguese Minister, on the subject 
of duties on Portuguese wines, and a report of great 
importance on the Sound duties and the Zoll-Verein, 
topics to which the recent changes in the Germanic 
system will henceforward impart a greatly increased 
importance. 

This brief enumeration will of itself sufficiently 
show the extensive range of the subjects to which 
the attention of Mr. Webster was called, during the 
two years for which he filled the Department of 
State. 

The published correspondence probably forms but 
a small portion of the official labors of the Depart- 
ment of State for the period during which it was 
filled by Mr. W^ebster. They constitute, neverthe- 
less, the most important part of the documentary 
record of a period of official service, brief, indeed, 
but as beneficial to the country as any of which the 
memory is preserved in her annals. The adminis- 
tration of General Harrison found the United States, 
in the spring of 1841, on the verge of a war, not with 
a feeble Spanish province, scarcely capable of a re- 
spectable resistance, but with the most powerful gov- 
ernment on earth. The conduct of our foreign 



i 



DANIEL WEBSTER 249 

relations was Intrusted to Mr. Webster, as Secretary 
of State, and in the two years during which he fiUed 
that office controversies of fifty years' standing were 
terminated, new causes of quarrel that sprung up 
like hydra's heads were settled, and peace was pre- 
served upon honorable terms. The British govern- 
ment, fresh from the conquest of China, perhaps 
never felt itself stronger than in the year 1842, and a 
full share of credit is due to the spirit of conciliation 
which swayed its counsels. Much is due to the 
wise and amiable minister who was despatched from 
England on the holy errand of peace; much to the 
patriotism of the Senate of the United States, w^ho 
confirmed the treaty of Washington by a larger ma- 
jority than ever before sustained a measure of this 
kind which divided public opinion ; but the first meed 
of praise is unquestionably due to the American ne- 
gotiator. Let the just measure of that praise be 
estimated, by reflecting what would have been our 
condition during those exciting years, if, instead of, 
or in addition to, the war with Mexico, we had been 
involved in a war with Great Britain. 



CHAPTER IX 

Mr. Webster resigns his Place in Mn Tyler's Cabinet. — Sup- 
ports Mr. Clay's Nomination for the Presidency. — Mr. Web- 
ster returns to the Senate. — Admission of Texas to the 
Union. — The War with Mexico. — Settlement of the Oregon 
Controversy. — Revival of the Sub-Treasury System and Re- 
peal of the Tariff Law of 1842. — Southern Tour. — Efforts in 
Congress to organize a Territorial Government for the Prov- 
inces gained from Mexico. — Nomination of General Taylor 
for the Presidency. — Constitution adopted by California pro- 
hibiting Slavery. — Increase of Anti-slavery Agitation. — Mr. 
Webster's " Seventh of March Speech " for the Union. — 
General Taylor's Death, and the Accession of Mr. Fillmore 
to the Presidency. — Mr, Webster called to the Department 
of State. 

Mr. Webster remained in the Department of 
State but a little over two years. His last act was 
the preparation of the instructions of Mr. Gushing, 
who had been appointed Commissioner to China. 
Difficulties had occurred the summer before, between 
President Tyler and some of the members of his 
Cabinet, and all of those gentlemen, with the excep- 
tion of Mr. Webster, tendered their resignations, 
which were accepted. Hard thoughts were enter- 
tained of Mr. \\^ebster in some quarters for con- 
tinuing to hold his seat after the resignation of his 
colleagues. President Tyler, however, had in no 
degree withdrawn his confidence from Mr. Webster 

250 



DANIEL WEBSTER 2$ I 

in reference to the foreign affairs of the country, nor 
interfered with the administration of his department, 
and Mr. Webster conceived that the interests in- 
volved in his remaining at his post were far too im- 
portant to be sacrificed to punctiHo. His own sense 
of duty in this respect was confirmed by the unani- 
mous counsel of the Massachusetts delegation in 
Congress, and by judicious friends in all parts of the 
country. In fact, it will be remembered that when 
difficulties sprung up between Mr. Tyler and the 
Whig party in Congress, in 1842, the Whig press 
generally throughout the country called upon the 
members of the Cabinet appointed by General Harri- 
son to retain their places till they should be removed 
bv Mr. Tvler. 

Mr. Webster remained in private life during the 
residue of President Tyler's administration, occupied 
as usual with professional pursuits, and enjoying in 
the appropriate seasons the retirement of his farm. 
He endeavored by private communications to arouse 
the feeling of the North to the projects which he per- 
ceived to be in agitation for the annexation of 
Texas, but the danger was regarded at that time as 
too remote to be contended against. A short time 
only elapsed before the fulfilment of his anticipa- 
tions was forced upon the country, with fearful 
urgency, and a train of consequences of which it 
was left to posterity to witness the full development. 
Between the years 1843 ^^^ ^^45 ^^^ fortunes of 
the United States were subjected to an influence, for 
good or for evil, not to be exhausted for centuries. 

The nomination of Mr. Clay to the Presidency in 



2 52 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

1844 was cordially supported by Mr. Webster. He 
took the field, as in the summer of 1840 in favor of 
General Harrison. 

It is well known that the result of this election 
was decisive of the question of the annexation of 
Texas. The opinions expressed by Mr. Van Buren 
against the immediate consummation of that project 
had prevented his receiving the nomination of the 
Baltimore Convention. Mr. Clay was pledged 
against the measure, and Mr. Polk was selected as 
its sure friend. 

At the first session of the Twenty-ninth Congress 
(1845-46), Mr. Webster took his seat as the suc- 
cessor of Mr. Choate in the Senate of the United 
States. The question of the admission of Texas 
was decided at the very commencement of the ses- 
sion. It was opposed by Mr. Webster. To all the 
other objections to the measure in his mind was 
added that of unconstitutionality. The annexation 
was now brought about simply by a joint resolution 
of the two houses, after it had been found impossible 
to effect it by treaty, the only form 'known to the 
Constitution by which a compact can be entered into 
with a foreign power. Mr. Jefferson was of opinion 
in 1803, that even a treaty with France was not suffi- 
cient for the annexation of Louisiana, but that an 
amendment of the Constitution was necessary for 
that purpose. In 1845 ^^^^ Executive and a majority 
of Congress, having failed to carry the ratification 
of a treaty of annexation by the constitutional ma- 
jority, scrupled not to accomplish their purpose by a 
joint resolution of the two houses; and this measure 



DANIEL WEBSTER 253 

was effected under the lead of statesmen who claim 
to construe the Constitution with literal strictness. 
Events like these furnish a painful illustration of the 
frailty of constitutional restraints as a barrier against 
the consummation of the favorite measures of a 
dominant party. 

The great event of the administration of President 
Polk was the war with Mexico. 

The proffered annexation of Texas had been de- 
clined both by General Jackson and Mr. Van Buren, 
on the ground that, unless made with the consent of 
Mexico, it would involve a war with that power. 
That this would be the effect was not less certain on 
the 2d of December, 1845, when Congress were con- 
gratulated on the " bloodless " acquisition, than it 
was when, on the 13th of January following. Gen- 
eral Taylor was instructed to occupy the left bank 
of the Rio del Norte. In fact, in the very message 
in which President Polk remarks to Congress " that 
the sword had had no part in the victory," he gives 
them also the significant information, that, upon the 
earnest appeal both of the Congress and convention 
of Texas, he had ordered '' an efficient military force 
to take a position between the Nueces and the Del 
Norte." 

This force, however efficient in proportion to its 
numbers and in virtue of the gallantry and skill of its 
commander, was found to be inadequate to sustain 
the brunt of the Mexican arms. Rapid movements 
on the part of Generals Ampudia and Arista, com- 
manding on the frontier, seriously endangered the 
safety of General Taylor's force, and it became 



2 54 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

necessary for Congress fe strengthen it by prompt 
reinforcements. In this way the war was com- 
menced. No formal declaration had taken place, 
nor had it been in the power of Congress to make 
known its will on the subject, till an absolute 
necessity arose of reinforcing General Taylor, and 
the subject had ceased to be one for legislative 
discretion. 

Under these circumstances it was of course im- 
possible for Mr. Webster to approve the war. It 
had been brought on by the Executive will, and with- 
out the concurrence of Congress till Congress had 
ceased to have an option, and its well-known ulterior 
objects were such as he could not but contemplate 
with equal disapprobation and alarm. Still, how- 
ever, in common with the body of his political 
friends, in and out of Congress, he abstained from 
all factious opposition, and all measures calculated 
to embarrass the government. The supplies were 
voted for by him, but he never ceased to urge upon 
the President to pursue a magnanimous policy to- 
ward the distracted and misgoverned country with 
which he had been brought in collision. Nothing 
but the most deplorable infatuation could have led 
the government of Mexico to suppose, that, after the 
independence of Texas had been recognized by the 
United States, Great Britain. France, and Belgium, 
it would be possible for a power as feeble as that of 
Mexico to reduce the rebellious province to sub- 
mission. 

The settlement of the controversy with England 
relative to the boundary of Oregon was effected in 



DANIEL WEBSTER 255 

V 

the first year of Mr. Polk's administration. The 
foundations for this adjustment had long been laid; 
in fact, as long ago as the administration of Mr. 
Monroe, the United States had offered to England 
the obvious basis of the extension of the forty-ninth 
degree of latitude to the Pacific. Great Britain al- 
lowed herself to be influenced by the Hudson's Bay 
Company so far, as to insist upon following the 
course of the Columbia down to the sea. She even 
took the extravagant ground that, although the 
United States, by the Louisiana and Florida treaties, 
combined the Spanish and the French titles with that 
of actual contiguity and prior discovery of the 
Columbia River, they had no exclusive title to any 
portion of the territory, but that it was all subject 
to her own joint and rival claim. This unreason- 
able pretension brought the two countries to the 
verge of war. The Baltimore Convention, in the 
year 1844, set up a claim, equally unreasonable, to 
the whole of the territory. President Polk in his 
inaugural message, quoting the words of the res- 
olution of the Baltimore Convention, pronounced 
our title to the territory to be " clear and 
unquestionable." 

The assertion of these opposite extremes of pre- 
tension happily resulted in the final adjustment on 
the forty-ninth degree. Mr. Webster had uniformly 
been of opinion that this was the fair basis of settle- 
ment. Flad he supposed that an arrangement could 
have been effected on this basis with Lord Ashbur- 
ton, he would gladly have included it in the treaty of 
Washington. After Mr. Webster's retirement from 



256 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

the Department of State, it is stated by President 
Polk that Mr. Upshur instructed Mr. Everett to 
offer that Hue to the British government ; but die 
negotiation had in the mean time, by the appoint- 
ment of Mr. Pakenham, been transferred to Wash- 
ington. The oft'er of the forty-ninth degree of lati- 
tude was renewed to Mr. Pakenham, but accom- 
panied with conditions which led him to decline it, 
and to express the hope that the United States would 
make " some further proposal for the settlement of 
the Oregon (juestion more consistent with fairness 
and equity, and with the reasonable expectations of 
the British government." The offer thus injudi- 
ciously rejected was withdrawn by the administra- 
tion. In this dangerous juncture of affairs the fol- 
lowing incidents occurred, which we give in the 
words of the Londou E.vajiiiiicr: 

" In reply to a question put to him in reference to the present 
war establishments of this country, and the propriety of apply- 
ing the principle of arbitration in the settlement of disputes 
arising among nations, Mr. McGregor, one of the candidates 
for the representation of Glasgow, took occasion to narrate the 
following very important and remarkable anecdote in connec- 
tion with our recent, but now happily terminated differences 
with the United States on the Oregon question. At the time 
our ambassador at Washington, the Hon. ]\Ir. Pakenham, 
refused to negotiate on the forty-ninth parallel of north lati- 
tude as the basis of a treaty, and when by that refusal the 
danger of a rupture between Great Britain and America became 
really imminent, Mr. Daniel Webster, formerly Secretary of 
State to the American government, wrote a letter to Mr. Mc- 
Gregor, in which he strongly deprecated Mr. Pakenham's con- 
duct, which, if persisted in and adopted at home, would, to a 
certainty, embroil the two countries, and suggested an equitable 
compromise, taking the forty-ninth parallel as the basis of an 



DANIEL WEBSTER 257 

adjustment. Mr. McGregor agreeing entirely with Mr. Web- 
ster in the propriety of a mutual giving and taking to avoid a 
rupture, and the more especially as the whole territory in dis- 
pute was not worth £20,000 to either power, while the prepara- 
tions alone for a war would cost a great deal more before the 
parties could come into actual conflict, communicated the con- 
tents of Mr. Webster's letter to Lord John Russell, who at the 
time was living in the neighborhood of Edinburgh, and, in 
reply, received a letter from Lord John, in which he stated his 
entire accordance with the proposal recommended by Mr. Web- 
ster, and approved of by Mr. McGregor, and requested the 
latter, as he (Lord John) was not in a position to do it him- 
self, to intimate his opinion to Lord Aberdeen. Mr. McGregor, 
through Lord Canning, Under-Secretary for the Foreign De- 
partment, did so, and the result was, that the first packet that 
left England carried out to America the proposal, in accord- 
ance with the communication already referred to, on which the 
treaty of Oregon was happily concluded. Mr, McGregor may, 
therefore, be very justly said to have been the instrument of 
preserving the peace of the world; and, for that alone, even if 
he had no other services to appeal to, he has justly earned the 
applause and admiration, not of his own countrymen only, but 
of all men who desire to promote the best interests of the 
human race." 

Without wishing to detract in any degree from 
the praise due to Mr. McGregor for his judicious 
and liberal conduct on this occasion, the credit of 
the main result is exclusively due to his American 
correspondent. A powerful influence was ascribed 
also to an able article in the Edinburgh Reviezv for 
April, 1845, i^^ which the reasonableness of this 
basis of settlement was set forth with great ability. 

The first session of the Twenty-ninth Congress 
was signalized by the revival of the sub-treasury 
system, and the overthrow of the tariff of 1842. 
At a moment when the public finances were, in ref- 

A. B., VOL. VI. — 17 



258 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

erence to the means of collection, custody, and trans- 
fer, in a sound and healthy condition, the adminis- 
tration deemed it expedient to subject the country 
and the treasury to the hazard and inconvenience 
of a change. ^Ir. Webster spoke with equal earnest- 
ness and power against the renewal of experiments 
which had already proved so disastrous ; but the bill 
was carried by a party vote. The same success 
attended the President's recommendation of an en- 
tire change in the revenue system, by which, instead 
of specific duties, ad valorem duties w^ere to be as- 
sessed on the foreign valuation. Various other 
changes were made in the tariff established in 1842, 
equally tending to depress our own manufactures, 
and to give a preference to foreign over native labor, 
and this even in cases where no benefit could be 
expected to accrue to the treasury from the change. 
Mr. Webster made a truly Herculean effort against 
the government project, in his speech of the 25th and 
26th of July, 1846, but the decree had gone forth. 
The scale was turned by the Senators from the new 
State of Texas, which had been brought into the 
Union by the votes of members of Congress whose 
constituents had the deepest interest in sustaining 
the tariff* of 1842. 

In the spring of 1847, after the adjournment of 
Congress, Mr. Webster undertook a tour to the 
South. His object was to pass by the way of the 
Atlantic States to New Orleans, and to ascend the 
Mississippi. He had never seen that part of the 
Union, and promised himself equal gratification and 
instruction from an opportunity, however brief, of 



DANIEL WEBSTER 259 

personal inspection. He was ever of opinion that 
higher motives than those of curiosity and recrea- 
tion should lead the citizens of different parts of 
the country to the interchange of visits of this kind. 
That they had become so much less frequent than 
they were in former years he regarded as one of the 
inauspicious features of the times. He was accom- 
panied on this excursion by his family. They passed 
hastily through Virginia and North Carolina to 
South Carolina. At Charleston he was received 
with the most distinguished attention and cordial- 
ity. He was welcomed on his arrival by an assem- 
blage of the most respectable citizens. Entertain- 
ments were given him by the New England Society 
of Charleston and by the Charleston Bar. At these 
festivals the sentiments and speeches were of the 
most cordial description. Similar hospitalities and 
honors were paid him at Columbia, Augusta, and 
Savannah. No trace of sectional or party feeling 
detracted from the warmth of his reception. His 
visit was everywhere regarded as an interesting pub- 
lic event. Unhappily, his health failed him on his 
arrival at Savannah ; and the advance of the season 
made it impossible for him to execute the original 
project of a journey to New Orleans. He was com- 
pelled to hasten back to the North. 

Meantime events of higher importance were in 
progress. Success crowned our arms in the Mexi- 
can war. The military skill, gallantry, and indom- 
itable resolution of the great captains to whom the 
chief command of the war had been committed 
(though not by the first choice of the administra- 



26o AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

tion), aided by the spirit and discipline of the 
troops, achieved the conquest of Mexico. Peace was 
dictated to her from Washington, and a treaty con- 
cluded, by which extensive portions of her territory, 
comprising the province of New Mexico and a con- 
siderable part of California, were ceded to the 
United States. Mr. Webster, foreseeing that these 
cessions would prove a Pandora's box of discord and 
strife between the different sections of the Union, 
voted against the ratification of the treaty. He was 
sustained in this course by some Southern Whig 
Senators, but the constitutional majority deemed any 
treaty better than the continuation of the war. 

With the restoration of peace, the (juestion what 
should be done with the territories presented itself 
with alarming prominence. FormidaJ^le under any 
circumstances, it became doubly so in consequence 
of the discovery of gold in California, and the pro- 
digious rush to that quarter of adventurers from 
every part of the world. Population flocked into 
and took possession of the country, its ancient polit- 
ical organization, feeble at best, was subverted, and 
the immediate action of Congress was necessary to 
prevent a state of anarchy. The House of Repre- 
sentatives passed a bill providing for the organiza- 
tion of a territorial government for the provinces 
newly acquired from Mexico, with the anti -slavery 
proviso, borrowed from the Ordinance of 1787. 
This bill failed to pass the Senate, and nothing was 
done at the first session of the Thirtieth Congress to 
meet the existing emergency in California. 

In consequence of months of disagreement be- 



DANIEL WEBSTER 26 1 

tween the Houses of Congress as to the provinces re- 
cently acquired from Mexico, all provision for the 
territories was sacrificed; but a bill which had pre- 
viously passed the House, extending the revenue 
laws of the United States to California, was passed 
by die Senate, and rescued the people of California 
from an entire destitution of government on behalf 
of the United States. The Senate on this occasion 
was, for the first time since the adoption of the Con- 
stitution, on the verge of disorganization ; and it was 
felt throughout the day and night, that it was saved 
from falling into that condition mainly by the par- 
liamentary tact and personal influence of Mr. Web- 
ster. This tribute was paid to Mr. Webster's ar- 
duous exertions on that occasion by a member of 
Congress w^armly opposed to him. 

Not the least important consequence of the Mex- 
ican war was the political revolution in the United 
States of which it was the cause. When the policy 
of invading and conquering Mexico was determined 
upon, it was probably regarded by the administra- 
tion as a measure calculated to strengthen their 
party. Opponents were likely to expose themselves 
to odium by disapproving the w^ar. The command- 
ing generals were both Whigs, and one of them had 
been named as a candidate for the Presidency. It 
was probably thought that, if they succeeded, the 
glory would accrue to the administration; if they 
failed, the discredit would fall upon themselves. 

If anticipations like these were formed, they were 
signally disappointed. A series of the most brill- 
iant triumphs crowned the arms both of General 



262 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

« 

Taylor and General Scott. Those of General Tay- 
lor were first in time ; and as they had been preceded 
by doubts, anxieties, and, in the case of Buena Vista, 
by rumors of disaster, they took the stronger hold 
of the public mind. The nomination for the Presi- 
dency was not reserved for the Whig convention. 
It was in effect made at Palo Alto and Monterey, 
and was confirmed at Buena Vista. It was a move- 
ment of the people to which resistance was in vain. 

Statesmen and civilians, however, might wxU 
pause for a moment. The late experience of the 
country, under a President elected in consequence 
of military popularity, was not favorable to a repe- 
tition of the experiment; and General Taylor was 
wholly unknown in political life. At the Whig con- 
vention in Philadelphia other distinguished Whigs, 
General Scott, Mr. Clay, and Mr. Webster, had di- 
vided the votes with General Taylor. He was, how- 
ever, selected by a great majority as the candidate 
of the party. Mr. Webster took the view of this 
nomination which might have been expected from 
a veteran statesman and a civilian of forty years' 
experience in the service of the country. He had, 
in common with the whole Whig party, in General 
Jackson's case, opposed the nomination of a military 
chieftain. 

On his accession to the Presidency, however, Gen- 
eral Taylor found Mr. Webster disposed and pre- 
pared to give his administration a cordial and efifi- 
cient support. 

In the summer and autumn of 1849 events of the 
utmost importance occurred in California. The 



DANIEL WEBSTER 263 

people of that region, left almost entirely without 
a government by Congress, met in convention to 
form a constitution ; and although nearly half of the 
members who were new-comers were from the 
Southern States, they unanimously agreed to the 
prohibition of slavery. The constitution prepared 
by the convention was accepted by the people, and 
with it they applied for admission to the Union. 

Other occurrences, however, had in the meantime 
taken place, which materially increased the difficul- 
ties attending the territorial question. The subject 
of slavery had for fifteen or twenty years been agi- 
tated with steadily increasing warmth, and for the 
latter portion of the period w^ith growing violence. 
On the acquisition of the Mexican provinces, the 
representatives of the non-slaveholding States gen- 
erally deemed it their duty to introduce into the acts 
passed for their government a restriction analogous 
to the anti-slavery proviso of the Ordinance of 1787. 
A motion to this effect having been made by Mr. 
Wilmot of Pennsylvania, by way of amendment to 
one of the appropriation bills passed during the war, 
the restriction has obtained the name of the " Wil- 
mot Proviso." This motion in the House of Repre- 
sentatives was extensively seconded by die press, by 
popular assemblies, and by legislative resolutions 
throughout the non-slaveholding States, and caused 
a considerable increase of anti-slavery agitation. 

The South, of course, took an interest in the ques- 
tion not inferior to that of the North. The exten- 
sion of the United States on the southwestern fron- 
tier had long been a cardinal point in the policy of 



264 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

most Southern statesmen. The appHcation of an 
anti-slavery proviso to territories acquired by con- 
quest in that quarter came into direct conflict with 
this poHcy. Meetings were accordingly held at 
Washington during the first session of the Thirtieth 
Congress, attended by a majority of the members 
from the slaveholding States, to take into considera- 
tion the measures proper to be adopted. At one of 
these meetings a sub-committee was appointed, of 
which Mr. Calhoun was chairman, to prepare an 
address " of the Southern delegates to their con- 
stituents." At a subsequent meeting a substitute 
for this address was submitted to Mr. Berrien of 
Georgia, under the title of an address " to the people 
of the United States." The original paper was, 
however, adopted in preference, and received the 
signatures of forty-eight of the members of Con- 
gress from the slaveholding States. Of these all but 
iwo were of the Democratic party. 

These proceedings contributed materially to in- 
crease the discontents existing at the South. Nor 
was the progress of excitement less rapid at the 
North. The nomination of General Taylor by the 
Whig convention, accompanied by the refusal of that 
convention to countenance the \\'ilmot Proviso, led 
to the organization of the Free Soil party in the non- 
slaveholding States. In the summer of 1(848. a con- 
vention of delegates of this party assembled at 
Buffalo in New York, at which an anti-slavery 
platform was adopted, and Mr. Van Buren was 
nominated as a candidate for the Presidency. 

These occurrences and the state of feeling which 



DANIEL WEBSTER 265 

they created, or indicated, appeared to Mr. Webster 
to constitute a crisis in the condition of the country 
of a most formidable description. Opinion at the 
North and South had, in his judgment, either 
reached, or was rapidly reaching, a point at which 
the cooperation of the two sections of the country 
in carrying on the government as coequal members 
of the Federal Union would cease to be practicable. 
The constitutional opinions and the views on the 
subject of slavery set forth in Mr. Calhoun's address 
he deemed to be such as could never be acquiesced 
in by the non-slaveholding States. On the other 
hand, the organization of a party on the basis of 
anti-slavery agitation at the North appeared to him 
equally menacing to the Union. The professions 
of attachment to the Union and the Constitution 
made on both sides, and often, no doubt, in entire 
good faith, did but increase the danger, by their 
tendency to produce misapprehension and self-de- 
ception as to the really irreconcilable nature of the 
opposite extremes of opinion. 

It was his profound and anxious sense of the 
dangers of the Union, in this crisis of affairs, which 
reconciled Mr. Webster to the nomination of General 
Taylor. He saw in his position as a citizen of a 
Southern State and a slaveholder the basis of support 
to his administration from that quarter of the 
Union; while his connection with the Whig party, 
the known moderation of his views, with his declared 
sentiments on the subject of the Presidential veto, 
were a sufficient ground for the confidence of the 
North. In fact, in the existing state of things, it 



266 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

was soon apparent that there was no other candidate 
of either party so well calculated to allay sectional 
differences, and guide the vessel of state over the 
stormy sea of excitement and agitation. 

But whatever reliance might justly have been 
placed upon the character and disposition of General 
Taylor, the prospect of affairs was sufficiently dark 
and inauspicious. Thoughtful persons looked for- 
ward to a struggle on the territorial question, at the 
first session of the Thirty-first Congress, which 
would convulse the country. In this state of things 
the event which we have already alluded to took 
place, and California presented herself for admission 
as a State, with a constitution prohibiting slavery. 
As California was the only portion of the Mexican 
territory in reference to which the question was of 
practical importance, Mr. Webster derived from this 
unexpected and seasonable occurrence a gleam of 
hope. It removed a topic of controversy in refer- 
ence to which it had seemed hopeless to propose any 
terms of compromise; and it opened as it were provi- 
dentially, the door for an understanding on other 
points, on the basis of carrying into execution exist- 
ing compacts and constitutional provisions on the 
one hand, and not strenuously insisting, on the other 
hand, upon applying the anti-slavery proviso where, 
as in Utah and New Mexico, he was persuaded it 
could be of no practical importance. 

On these principles, and with this object in view, 
Mr. Webster made his great speech of the 7th of 
March, 1850. 

It would be too much to expect, in reference to a 



DANIEL WEBSTER 267 

subject of so much difficulty, and one on which the 
pubHc mind has been so greatly excited, that a speech 
of this description should tind universal favor in any 
part of the country. It is believed, however, that by 
the majority of patriotic and reflecting citizens in 
every part of the United States, while on single 
topics there may be differences of opinion, it has 
been regarded as holding out a practical basis for 
the adjustment of controversies, which had already 
gone far to dissolve the Union, and could not be 
much longer pursued without producing that result. 
If those who have most strongly expressed their dis- 
sent from the doctrines of the speech (we do not, of 
course, allude to the mere clamor of political or per- 
sonal enemies) had paused from the work of denun- 
ciation, and make the attempt themselves to lay down 
a practicable platform on which this great contro- 
versv could in fact be settled, and the union of the 
States perpetuated, they would not find it so hard 
to censure what is done by others as to do better 
themselves. It was quite eas}' to construct a South- 
ern platform or a Northern platform : the difficulty 
was to find a basis on which South and Xorth will 
be able and z^iUiiig to stand together. Of all those 
who have condemned the views of ]\Ir. Webster, 
who has gone further than he. in the speech of the 
7th of ]\Iarch, 1850, to furnish such a basis? Or 
rather, we may ask, who of those that have been 
loudest in condemnation of his course has taken a 
single step toward effecting this paramount object? 
^Ir. A\^ebster's thoughts are known to have been 
earnestly and profoundly employed on this subject 



268 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

from the commencement of the session. He saw 
beforehand the clifficuhies and the dangers incident 
to the step which he adopted, but he beheved that, 
unless some such step was taken in the North, the 
separation of the States was inevitable. The known 
state of opinion of leading members of Congress led 
him to look for little support from them. He opened 
the matter to some of his political friends, but they 
did not encourage him in the course he felt bound to 
pursue. He found that he could not expect the co- 
operation of the members of Congress from his own 
State, nor that of many of the members from the 
other Northern States. He gave up all attempt to 
rally beforehand a party which would sustain him. 
His own description of his feelings at the time was, 
" that he had made up his mind to embark alone on 
what he was aware would prove a stormy sea, be- 
cause, in that case, should final disaster ensue, there 
would be but one life lost." But he believed that the 
step which he was about to take would be sanctioned 
by the mass of the people, and in that reliance he 
wxnt forward. 

AVhile the compromise measures were still unde- 
cided before Congress, about midsummer of 1850, 
President Taylor was removed from his high office 
by death. In the reorganization of the Executive 
occasioned by this event, Mr. Webster, to the gen- 
eral satisfaction of the country, was placed by Presi- 
dent Fillmore at the head of the administration, as 
the Secretary of State. 



At this point — with the exception of an eloquent 



DANIEL WEBSTER 269 

eulogy of his friend as an unselfish citizen and a 
great statesman — ends Mr. Everett's biographical 
memoir of Daniel Webster. Writing as he did 
while Mr. Webster was still living (the memoir be- 
ing prefatory to an edition of the great man's 
W^orks). Mr. Everett's sense of delicacy prevented 
his mention of one notable element of Mr. Web- 
ster's life, his honorable ambition for the Presidency. 

In 1848, the general feeling of his friends was 
that he would receive the Whig nomination; but 
the popularity of General Zachary Taylor, the hero 
of the Mexican War, effected the nomination and 
election of that officer. In 1850, during the debates 
on Clay's Compromise measures, Mr. Webster de- 
livered his famous " Seventh of March " speech, 
alluded to above. His ardent belief in the Union, 
dread of civil war — which he felt to be approaching 
unless it could be prevented by conciliation and 
horror of secession — against which that speech con- 
tained a thrillingly powerful appeal, led him to urge 
the Compromise, and even to justify the Fugitive 
Slave bill which was a part of it. The anti-slavery 
sentiment of the North violently repudiated this, 
as a bid for Southern Whig favor; but most un- 
justly in the case of this man, who had never 
swerved from principle for personal profit. In 
1852, however, after his successful service as the 
head of Mr. Tyler's cabinet (following President 
Taylor's death in 1850), Mr. Webster's friends 
again looked for his nomination ; but he was not 
forgiven, and the honor went to General Scott. 

In May of that year, Mr. Webster w^as seriously 



270 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

injured in a carriage accident at his farm in Marsh- 
field, Mass., and the effects of this, of his forty 
years of laborious public service, and of the rapid 
advance of some chronic ailments — perhaps, too, the 
mortification of disappointment at being misjudged 
and at missing the crowning ambition of his life — 
swiftly undermined his health. He died at Marsh- 
field, October 24, 1852, at seventy years of age. 

Dr. John Lord, in his " Beacon Lights of His- 
tory," has well summed up Webster's character. 
Recognizing his defects, he adds : " But these were 
overbalanced by the warmth of his affection for his 
faithful friends, simplicity of manners and of taste, 
courteous treatment of opponents, dignity of char- 
acter, kindness to the poor, hospitality, enjoyment 
of rural scenes and sports, profound religious in- 
stincts, devotion to what he deemed the welfare of 
his country, independence of opinions and boldness 
in asserting them at any hazard and against all 
opposition, and unbounded contempt of all shams 
and tricks. . . . His fame will spread, and 
grow wider and greater, like that of Bacon and 
Burke, and of other benefactors of mankind; and 
his ideas will not pass away until the glorious fabric 
of American institutions, whose foundations were 
laid by God-fearing people, shall be utterly de- 
stroyed, and the Capitol where his noblest efforts 
were made shall become a mass of broken and pros- 
trate columns beneath the debris of ^ the nation's 



ruin." 



THE 

LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

OF 

H ENRY C LAY 

DOWN TO 1848. 

By EPES SARGENT 



EDITED AND COMPLETED AT MR. CLAY'S DEATH 

By HORACE GREELEY 



BRIDGED AND EDITED FOR THIS SERIES 

By JOHN R. HOWARD 



EDITOR'S PREFACE • 



One of the active literary men of the middle years 
of the nineteenth century was Epes Sargent (1813- 
1880), a journalist, dramatist, magazine-writer, 
book-editor, and withal, in politics, an ardent Whig. 
In 1842, when Henry Clay was prominent as a can- 
didate for the presidency of the United States, Mr. 
Sargent wrote a narrative of his life; in 1848, on a 
similar occasion, it was reissued in revised form ; and 
after Mr. Clay's death, in 1852, Horace Greeley, the 
founder and great editor of the New York Tribune, 
still further revised it, brought it down to that date, 
and published it again. The Memoir, therefore, has 
a notable fathering; and it is a book worthy of note. 

In accuracy and fulness, in patriotic and political 
and personal enthusiasm, in honest attempt to give 
Mr. Clay's own reasons for his acts and — it must be 
admitted — to claim for him a very striking share of 
credit for the successful things that were done or 
begun during his public career, there can be no com- 
plaint of deficiency. Indeed, so full was the com- 
pleted work — with following the fortunes of special 
measures in Congress, with enumerations of votes in 
public elections and legislative action, with complica- 
tions of altercation Involving other public men, with 

A. B., VOL. VI. — 18 273 



274 EDITOR S PREFACE 

letters and speeches and newspaper comment and 
"numberless matters, which are now of no concern 
except to one who is studying the man and the period 
in detail — that for the present object, the presenta- 
tion of a brief, true, interesting Memoir, it was neces- 
sary to abridge it by omitting those matters. The 
attempt has been made to do this without sacrificing 
either the full truth or the personal spirit of the 
narrative. 

No one will conceive that Horace Greeley could 
edit or write anything that was not brimful of his 
own convictions ; so that any reader of this biography 
will expect to find Henry Clay set forth especially as 
the father of the " American system of protection " 
by means of a tariff on foreign importations — nor 
will he be disappointed. It may be doubted whether 
Mr. Clay would recognize his own child at present, 
but, in Kipling's phrase, " That's another story." 
Mr. Clay was one of the great trio who made the 
halls of the United States Senate famous the world 
around, for masterly eloquence upon themes of vita! 
national concern ; and this Memoir presents him with 
graphic truth. 



INTRODUCTION 



Several sketches, more or less elaborate, of the 
character and career of Henry Clay, afy[3eared 
during his lifetime, oftener prefixed to collections 
of his Speeches ; though one independent Memoir, of 
decided merit, was written more than twenty years 
since by George D. Prentice, Editor of the Louis- 
ville Journal, and then widely disseminated. That, 
however, has long been out of print, while the more 
eventful and memorable half of Mr. Clay's biography 
was yet in the future when Mr. Prentice wrote. 
And I have reason to believe that Mr. Clay himself 
gave the preference, among all the narratives of his 
life which had fallen under his notice, to that of Epes 
Sargent, first issued in 1842, and republished, with 
its author's revisions and additions, in the summer 
of 1848. . . . 

We Americans of 1852 — nearly all of us who read 
or think, with many who do neither — are the heated 
partisans or embittered opponents of Mr. Clay — 
with him or against him, idolizing or detesting him, 
we have struggled through all the past decades of 
our manhood. He has been our demigod or demon 
through the last quarter of a century, while many of 
us date our admiration or our hostility from the year 
1812. If, then, we can but preserve and intelligibly 

275 



276 INTRODUCTION 

present the facts essential to a just estimate of Mr. 
Clay's character, we may very properly remit to the 
next generation the duty of analyzing those facts, 
and determining what manner of man was the Ora- 
tor of Ashland whose voice enchained and wielded 
listening Senates, and whose weaponless hand was 
mightier than the truncheon of generals, or the scep- 
tre of monarchs. It is at least the duty of his surviv- 
ing friends to take care that he be not misrepresented 
to and undervalued by posterity because the facts 
essential to his true appreciation were not seasonably 
collected and fitly set fortli. 

This, then, is the aim and end of the work herewith 
submitted — a candid presentation of the facts essen- 
tial to a just estimate of Mr. Clay's Life and Public 
Services, from the point of view whence they were 
regarded by his devoted, unselfish compatriots and 
friends. If he has been overestimated, if the system 
of Public Policy which he so long and ably advocated 
be mistaken and unsound, time will so determine. 
Should the uhimate verdict be — as I think it cannot 
— adverse to his eminence as a Statesman, it need not 
therefore blast his reputation as a Man. That he 
was a sincere and ardent Patriot, an earnest though 
unpretending Philanthropist, a beloved Husband and 
Father, a kind and just Neighbor, a chivalrous Ad- 
versary, and an unfailing Friend — these are no 
longer doubtful. So much, at least, is secure from 
the venom of calumny and the accidents of fortune. 
Let some future Plutarch or Thucydides fix and de- 
clare the world's ultimate verdict on the American 
System and its Father ; but we, who knew and loved 



INTRODUCTION 277 

him well, may more truly and vividly, even though 
awkwardly and feebly, depict how looked and felt, 
how spoke and acted, how lived and loved, the man 
Henry Clay. 

The Editor, in revising the work of Mr. Sargent, 
has taken the responsibility of omitting or modify- 
ing some passages which involved harsh judgments 
of those Political brethren who, at one time or an- 
other, have seen fit to prefer some other Whig to 
Mr. Clay as a candidate for the Presidency. He did 
not perceive that those judgments bore any proper 
relation to Mr. Clay's character or career, while their 
reproduction would tend to revive feuds and heart- 
burnings now rapidly laid to rest. . . . 

H. G. 



LIFE OF HENRY CLAY 



CHAPTER I 

Youth and Early Manhood. 

Henry Clay was a native of Hanover County, 
Virginia. He was born on the 12th of April, 1777, in 
a district of country familiarly known in the neigh- 
borhood as the Slashes. His father, a Baptist clergy- 
man, died during the Revolutionary War, bequeath- 
ing a small and much-embarrassed estate and seven 
children, of whom Henry was the fifth, to the care of 
an affectionate mother. The surviving parent did 
not possess the means to give her sons a classical 
education; and the subject of our memoir received 
no other instruction than such as could be obtained 
in the log-cabin school-houses, still common in the 
lower parts of Virginia, at which spelling, reading, 
writing, and arithmetic, are taught. 

In 1792, his mother, who had become united, in a 
second marriage, with Mr. Henry Watkins, removed 
to Woodford County, Kentucky, taking all her chil- 
dren, with the exception of Henry and his oldest 
brother. It was always a subject of regret with Mr. 

Clay, that he was deprived at so early an age of his 

279 



28o AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

mother's counsel, conversation, and care. She was a 
woman of great strength of mind, and was tenderly 
attached to her children. 

He had been only live years old when he lost his 
father; and, consequently, his circumstances in early 
life, if not actually indigent, were such as to subject 
him frequently to hard manual labor. He has 
ploughed in cornfields, many a summer-day, without 
shoes, and with no other clothes on than a pair of 
Osnaburg trousers, and a coarse shirt. He has often 
gone to mill with grain to be ground into meal or 
flour ; and there are those who remember his youth- 
ful visits to Mrs. Darricott's mill, on the Pamunkey 
River. 

At the age of fourteen, he was placed in a small 
retail store, kept by Mr. Richard Denny, near the 
market-house in the city of Richmond. He remained 
here till the next year (1792), when he was trans- 
ferred to the office of the clerk of the high court of 
chancery, Mr. Peter Tinsley. There he became ac- 
quainted with the venerable Chancellor Wythe, at- 
tracted his friendly attention, and enjoyed the benefit 
of his instruction and conversation. The chancellor 
being unable to write well, in consequence of the gout 
or rheumatism in his right thumb, bethought himself 
of employing his young friend as an amanuensis. 
This was a fortunate circumstance for the fatherless 
boy. His attention was thus called to the structure 
of sentences, as he wrote them down from the dicta- 
tion of his employer; and a taste for the study of 
grammar was created which was noticed and encour- 
aged by the chancellor, upon whose recommendation 



^ 



HENRY CLAY 28 I 

he read Harris's '' Hermes," Tooke's '' Diversions 
of Purley," Bishop Lowth's Grammar, and other 
similar works. 

For his handwriting, which was remarkably neat 
and regular, Mr. Clay was chiefly indebted to Mr. 
Tinsley. Chancellor Wythe was devoted to the 
study of Greek. He was at one time occupied in 
preparing reports of his decisions, and commenting 
upon those of the court of appeals, by which some of 
his were reversed ; and in this work he was assisted 
by his amanuensis. After the reports were pub- 
lished, he sent copies to Mr. Jefferson, John Adams, 
Samuel Adams, and others. In these copies he em- 
ployed Henry Clay to copy particular passages from 
Greek authors, to whom references had been made. 
Not understanding a single Greek character, the 
young copyist had to transcribe by imitation letter 
after letter. 

Leaving the office of Mr. Tinsley the latter part of 
1796, he went to reside with the late Robert Brooke, 
Esq., the attorney-general, formerly governor of Vir- 
ginia. His only regular study of the law was during 
the year 1797, that he lived with Mr. Brooke; but it 
was impossible that he should not, in the daily scenes 
he witnessed, and in the presence of the eminent men 
whom he so often heard and saw, be in the way of 
gathering much valuable legal information. During 
his residence of six or seven years in Richmond, he 
became acquainted with all or most of the eminent 
Virginians of the period, who lived in that city, or 
were in the habit of resorting to it. 

Henry Clay quitted Richmond in November, 1797, 



282 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

his eldest brother having died while he yet resided in 
that city. Bearing a license from the judges of the 
Virginia court of appeals to practise law, he estab- 
lished himself in Lexington, Kentucky. He was 
without patrons, without the countenance of influ- 
ential friends, and destitute of the means of paying 
his weekly board. 

Before assuming the active responsibilities of his 
profession he devoted himself with assiduity several 
months to his legal studies. Even at that period the 
bai; of Lexington was eminent for its ability. But 
true genius is rarely unaccompanied by a conscious- 
ness of its power ; and the friendless and unknown 
youth from Virginia fearlessly entered the field, 
which, to a less intrepid spirit, would have seemed 
preoccupied. He soon commanded consideration 
and respect. He was familiar with the technicalities 
of practice ; and early habits of business and applica- 
tion enabled him to effect an easy mastery of the 
cases intrusted to his charge. His subtle apprecia- 
tion of character, knowledge of human nature, and 
faculties of persuasion, rendered him peculiarly suc- 
cessful in his appeals to a jury; and he obtained great 
celebrity for his adroit and careful management of 
criminal cases. 

He was admitted as a practitioner before the 
Fayette court of quarter sessions, a court of general 
jurisdiction. Business soon poured in upon him, and 
during the first term he had a handsome practice. 
His manners and address, both in personal inter- 
course and before a jury, were unusually captivating. 

He gained much distinction by the ability he dis- 



HENRY CLAY 283 

played in a notable murder case, and thenceforth it 
was considered a great object to enlist his assistance 
in all criminal pursuits on the part of the defendant. 

Notwithstanding his extraordinary success in all 
the criminal suits intrusted to him, the abilities dis- 
played by Mr. Clay at this period in civil cases were 
no less brilliant and triumphant. In suits growing 
out of the land laws of Virginia and Kentucky, he 
was especially distinguished; rapidly acquiring 
wealth and popularity by his practice. 

As early as 1797, when the people of Kentucky 
were about electing a convention to form a new con- 
stitution for that State, Mr. Clay may be said to have 
commenced his political career. His first efforts were 
made on behalf of human liberty, and at the risk of 
losing that breeze of popular favor, which was waft- 
ing on his barque bravely toward the haven of world- 
ly prosperity and renown. 

The most important feature in the plan for a new 
constitution, submitted to the people of Kentucky, 
was a provision for the prospective eradication of 
slavery from the State by means of a gradual eman- 
cipation of those held in bondage. Against this pro- 
posal a tremendous outcry was at once raised. It 
was not to be questioned that the voice of the major- 
ity was vehemently opposed to it. But young Clay 
did not hesitate as to his course. In that spirit of 
self-sacrifice, which he displayed on so many 
occasions, in great public emergencies, without 
stopping to reckon the disadvantages to himself, he 
boldly arrayed himself on the side of those friendly 
to emancipation. He failed in the fulfilment of his 



284 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

philanthropic intentions, and incurred temporary 
unpopularity by his course. 

Mr. Clay thought with many others, that, as the 
slave States had severally the right to judge, every 
one exclusively for itself, in respect to the institution 
of domestic slavery, the proportion of slaves to the 
white population in Kentucky at that time was so 
inconsiderable, that a system of gradual emancipa- 
tion might have been adopted without any hazard to 
the security and interests of the commonwealth. 

During the administration of John Adams, 1798- 
99, the famous alien and sedition laws were passed. 
The popular opposition with which these extraordi- 
nary measures were received, is still vividly remem- 
bered in the United States. By the '' alien law," the 
President was authorized to order any alien, whom 
" he should judge dangerous to the peace and safe- 
ty " of the country, " to depart out of the territory 
within such time " as he should judge proper, upon 
penalty of being " imprisoned for a term not exceed- 
ing three years," &c. 

The " sedition law " was designed to punish the 
abuse of speech and of the press. It imposed a heavy 
pecuniary fine, and imprisonment for a term of years, 
upon such as should combine or conspire together to 
oppose any measure of government: upon such as 
should write, print, utter, publish, &c., " any false, 
scandalous and malicious writing against the govern- 
ment of the United States or the President," &c. 

Mr. Clay stood forth one of the earliest champions 
of popular rights in opposition to these memorable 
laws. Kentucky was one of the first States that 



HENRY CLAY 285 

launched their thunders against them; and though 
many speakers came forward to give expression to 
the indignation which was swelhng in the pubhc 
heart, none succeeded so well in striking the respon- 
sive chord as our young lawyer. He was soon re- 
garded as the leading spirit of the opposition party; 
and it w^as about this time that the title of " The 
Great Commoner " was bestowed upon him. 

Four years afterward, when Mr. Clay was absent 
from the county of Fayette, he was brought forward, 
w^ithout his knowledge or previous consent, as a can- 
didate, and elected to the general assembly of Ken- 
tucky. He soon made his influence felt in that body. 

In the autumn of 1806, the celebrated Aaron Burr 
was arrested in Kentucky, on a charge of being en- 
gaged in an illegal warlike enterprise. The sagacity 
and penetration of that extraordinary man w-ere 
never more clearly evinced than in his application to 
Mr. Clay to defend him. Mr. Clay believed, and it 
was generally believed in Kentucky, that the prose- 
cution was groundless, and was instituted by Colonel 
Daviess, who was a great admirer of Colonel Ham- 
ilton, and who disliked Burr, because he had killed 
Hamilton in a duel, and was, moreover, his oppo- 
nent in politics. Mr. Clay felt a lively sympathy for 
Colonel Burr, on account of his being arrested in a 
State distant from his own, on account of his mis- 
fortunes, and the distinguished stations he had filled. 
Still he declined appearing for him, until Burr gave 
him written assurances that he was engaged in no 
enterprise forbidden by law, and none that was not 
known and approved by the cabinet at Washington. 



2 86 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

On receiving these assurances, Mr. Clay appeared 
for him; and, thinking that Burr ought not to be 
dealt with as an ordinary culprit, he declined re- 
ceiving from him any fee, although a liberal one was 
tendered. 

Burr was acquitted. Mr. Clay shortly after pro- 
ceeded to Washington, and received from Mr. Jeffer- 
son an account of the letter in cipher, which had been 
written by Burr to General Wilkinson, together with 
other information of the criminal designs of Burr. 
Mr. Clay handed the written assurances above men- 
tioned, to Mr. Jeft'erson at the request of the latter. 



CHAPTER II 

Course in Congress. — 1806 to 1812, 

On the twenty-ninth of December, 1806, Mr. Clay 
produced his credentials, and took his seat in the 
Senate of the United States. He had been elected by 
the legislature of the State of Kentucky, to fill a 
vacancy occasioned by the resignation of the Hon. 
John Adair ; and, from the journals of Congress, he 
seems to have entered at once actively upon the dis- 
charge of the duties of his new and exalted position. 
His first speech was in favor of the erection of a 
bridge over the Potomac River; and at this period, 
we perceive the dawning of those views of " internal 
improvement," which he afterward carried out so 
ably, and his advocacy of which should alone be 
sufficient to entitle him to the lasting gratitude of the 
country. 

This speech was soon followed by^is presentation 
of a resolution, advocating the expediency of appro- 
priating a quantity of land toward the opening of the 
canal proposed to be cut around the rapids of the 
Ohio, on the Kentucky shore. 

A few days afterward, he reported a bill providing 
for the appointment of commissioners to ascertain 
the practicability of removing the obstructions in the 
navigation of the Ohio at the rapids. The following 
resolution, presented the day of the passage of the 
bill, shows that Mr. Clay, thus early in his career, 

2S7 



288 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

was deeply Impressed with the importance of a sys- 
tem of internal improvement. He may truly be 
called the father of that system which has so in- 
calculably advanced the general prosperity of the 
Republic : — 

" Resolved, That the secretary of the treasury be directed to 
prepare and report to the senate at their next session, a plan 
for the application of such means as are within the power of 
Congress, to the purposes of opening roads and making 
canals : together with a statement of undertakings of that 
nature, which, as objects of public improvement, may require 
and deserve the aid of government; and, also, a statement of 
works, of the nature mentioned, which have been commenced, 
the progress which has been made in them, and the means and 
prospect of their being completed; and all such information 
as, in the opinion of the secretary, shall be material in rela- 
tion to the objects of this resolution." 

The resolution was passed with but three dissent- 
ing voices. 

Mr. Clay's election to the senate of the United 
States had been but for the fraction of a term, 
amounting to a single session. In the summer of 
1807 he was again chosen by the citizens of Fayette 
to represent them in the Kentucky legislature, and 
at the next session he was elected speaker of the as- 
sembly. In this position he did not content himself 
with faithfully discharging the ordinary duties of a 
speaker. He entered the arena of debate, and took 
an active part in most of the important discussions 
before the House. 

In December, 1808, Mr. Clay introduced before 
the legislature of Kentucky a series of resolutions 
approving the embargo, denouncing the British or- 



HENRY CLAY 289 

ders In council, pledging the cooperation of Ken- 
tucky to any measures of opposition to British exac- 
tion, upon which the General Government might de- 
termine, and declaring that '' Thomas Jefferson is 
entitled to the thanks of his country for the ability, 
uprightness, and intelligence zvhich he has displayed 
in the management both of our foreign relations and 
domestic concerns/' 

Soon after this event, Mr. Clay introduced a reso- 
lution recommending that every member, for the 
purpose of encouraging the industry of the country, 
should clothe himself in garments of domestic manu- 
facture. This resolution was at once most emphat- 
ically denounced by Mr. Humphrey Marshall, who 
stigmatized it as the project of a demagogue, and 
applied a profusion of harsh and ungenerous epithets 
to the mover. Mr. Clay retorted, and the quarrel 
went on until it terminated in a hostile encounter. 
The parties met, and by the first shot Mr. Marshall 
was slightly wounded. They stood up a second time, 
and Mr. Clay received a hardly perceptible flesh- 
wound in the leg. The seconds now interfered, and 
prevented a continuance of the combat. 

Mr. Clay was once again called upon in the course 
of his political career, by the barbarous exactions of 
society, to consent to a hostile encounter, but we are 
confident that no man at heart abominated the cus- 
tom more sincerely than he. The following passage 
in relation to this subject occurs in an address, which, 
in his maturer years, he made to his constituents : 
" I owe it to the community to say, that whatever 
heretofore I may have done, or by inevitable circum- 

A. B., VOL. VI. — 19 



290 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

Stances might be forced to do, no one holds it in 
deeper abhorrence than I do that pernicious practice. 
Condemned as it must be by the judgment and 
philosophy, to say nothing of the religion, of every 
thinking man, it is an affair of feeling about which 
we cannot, although we should, reason. Its true cor- 
rective will be found when all shall unite, as all ought 
to unite, in its unqualified proscription." 

In the winter session of Congress, in 1809-10, Mr. 
Clay took his seat a second time in the Senate of the 
United States. He had been elected by the legisla- 
ture by a handsome majority to supply a vacancy 
occasioned by the resignation of Mr. Buckner Thurs- 
ton, whose term wanted two years of its completion. 
From this period the public history of Mr. Clay may 
be found diffused through the annals of the Union. 

The predilections which Mr. Clay had early mani- 
fested in behalf of American manufactures and 
American principles were unequivocally avowed in 
his first speech before the Senate on being elected a 
second time to that body as far back as April, 18 10. 
A bill was under discussion appropriating a sum of 
money for procuring munitions of war, and for other 
purposes ; and an amendment had been proposed, in- 
structing the Secretary of the Navy, to provide sup- 
plies of cordage, sail-cloth, hemp, &c., and to give a 
preference to those of American growth and manu- 
facture. Mr. Lloyd of Massachusetts moved to 
strike out this part of the amendment ; and a discus- 
sion arose concerning the general policy of promot- 
ing domestic manufactures, in which Mr. Clay boldly 
declared himself its advocate. 



HENRY CLAY 291 

The sentiments avowed thus early in our legisla- 
tive history by Mr. Clay are now current throughout 
our vast community; and the " American System," 
as it has been called, is generally admitted to be not 
only a patriotic, but a politic system. But let it not 
be forgotten, that it is to the persevering and unre- 
mitted exertions of Henry Clay, that we are indebted 
for the planting and the cherishing of that goodly 
tree, under the far-spreading branches of which so 
many find protection and plenty at the present day. 

Mr. Clay's labors during the session appear to 
have been arduous and diversified — showing on his 
part unusual versatility, industry, and powers of ap- 
plication. He was placed on several important com- 
mittees, and seems to have taken part in all discus- 
sions of moment. 

The third session of the Eleventh Congress com- 
menced on the 3d of December, 18 10. Mr. Clay was 
once more in his seat in the Senate. Many important 
subjects were discussed by the Senate during the ses- 
sion of 1810-11; and Mr. Clay was in all of them 
conspicuous. His zeal and efficiency in the public 
service began to attract the eyes of the whole coun- 
try. At the expiration of his second fractional term 
of service in the Senate of the United States, having 
returned to Kentucky, he was elected a member of 
the Federal House of Representatives. Congress 
convened on the day designated by proclamation, the 
fourth day of November, 181 1 ; and, on the first bal- 
lot for Speaker, one hundred and twenty-eight mem- 
bers being present, he was chosen by a majority of 
thirty-one, over all opposition. 



292 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

The affairs of the nation were never in a more 
critical position than at this juncture. The honor of 
the repubhc was at stake. A long series of outrages 
perpetrated against our commerce by England and 
by France, had reached a height at which further 
toleration would have been pusillanimous. Under 
the Berlin and Milan decrees of Napoleon, our ships 
were seized, and our property confiscated by the 
French, in a manner to provoke the warmest indig- 
nation of a free people. Great Britain vied with 
France, and finally far surpassed her in her acts of 
violence and rapine toward us. Each of the bellig- 
erent nations sought a pretext in the conduct of the 
other for her own injustice. 

At length France, in answer to our remonstrances, 
repealed her odious decrees so far as we were con- 
cerned, and practically abandoned her system of 
seizure and oppression. Great Britain did not follow 
her example. 

A year had elapsed since the French decrees were 
rescinded ; but Great Britain persisted in her course, 
affecting to deny their extinction. The ships of the 
United States, laden with the produce of our soil and 
labor, navigated by our own citizens, and peaceably 
pursuing a lawful trade, were seized on our coasts, 
and, at the very mouth of our own harbors, con- 
demned and confiscated. But it was the ruffianly 
system of impressment — by which American free- 
men, pursuing a lawful life of hardship and daring 
on the ocean, were liable to be seized, in violation of 
the rights of our flag, forced into the naval service of 
a foreign power, and made, perhaps, the instruments 



HENRY CLAY 293 

of similar oppression toward their own countrymen 
— it was this despotic and barbarous system that 
principally roused the warlike spirit of Congress and 
the nation. 

The feelings of Mr. Clay on this subject, seem to 
have been of the intensest description. Though com- 
ing from a State distant from the seaboard, the 
wrongs and indignities practised against our mari- 
ners by British arrogance and oppression, fired his 
soul and stirred his whole nature to resistance. 

In appointing the committee on foreign relations, 
to whom the important question was to be referred, 
he was careful to select a majority of such members 
as partook of his own decided views. Peter B. Por- 
ter, of New York, was the chairman ; and, on the 
29th of November, he made a report, in which the 
committee earnestly recommended, in the words of 
the President, " that the United States be imme- 
diately put into an armor and attitude demanded by 
the crisis, and corresponding with the national spirit 
and expectations." 

On the 31st of December, the house resolved itself 
into a committee of the whole, Mr. Breckinridge in 
the chair, on a bill from the senate, providing for the 
raising of twenty-five thousand troops. Of this 
measure, Mr. Clay was the warmest, and at the same 
time most judicious advocate. He addressed the 
House eloquently in its behalf, and urged it forward, 
on all occasions, with his best energies. In conclud- 
ing, Mr. Clay said he trusted that he had fully estab- 
lished these three positions : That the quantum of 
the force proposed by the bill was not too great ; that 



294 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY * • 

its nature was such as the contemplated war called 
for; and that the object of the war was justified by 
every consideration of justice, of interest, of honor, 
and love of country. Unless that object were at 
once attained by peaceful means, he hoped that war 
would be waged before the close of the session. 

The bill passed the House on the 4th of January 
succeeding ; and, on the 226. of the same month, the 
report of the committee, to whom that part of the 
President's message, relating to a naval establish- 
ment, was referred, being under discussion, Mr. Clay 
spoke in favor of an increase of the navy, advocating 
the building of ten frigates. 

On the 29th of January, 181 2, the bill to increase 
the navy passed the House by a handsome majority. 
To Mr. Clay's eloquent advocacy of the measure, the 
country is largely indebted for the glorious naval suc- 
cesses which afterward shed a new and undying 
lustre upon our history. But for the gallant and 
effective navy, which sprang up under such auspices, 
the main arm of our defence would have been 
crippled. While we contemplate with pride our 
achievements upon the sea — the memorable deeds of 
our Lawrences, Decaturs, Hulls, Bainbridges, and 
Perrys — let us not forget the statesman, but for 
whose provident sagacity and intrepid spirit, the op- 
portunity of performing those exploits might never 
have been afforded. 



CHAPTER III 

The War of 1812.— Mr. Clay's Efforts. 

The cause of Mr. Clay's transference from the 
Senate to the House of Representatives, was his own 
preference, at the time, of a seat in the popular 
branch. His immediate appointment as Speaker was, 
under the circumstances, a rare honor, and one never, 
before or since, conferred on a new member. Among" 
the qualifications which led to his selection for that 
high station, was his known firmness, which would 
check any attempt to domineer over the House ; and 
many members had a special view to a proper re- 
straint upon Mr. John Randolph, of Virginia, w^ho, 
through the fears of Mr. Varnum, and the partiality 
entertained for him by Mr. Macon, the two preceding 
Speakers, had exercised a control which, it was be- 
lieved, was injurious to the deliberations of the body. 

On the first of April, 18 12, the following confiden- 
tial communication from the President to Congress 
was received : — 

" Considering it as expedient, under existing circumstances 
and prospects, that a general embargo be laid on all vessels 
now in port, or hereafter arriving, for the period of sixty 
days, I recommend the immediate passage of a law to that 
effect. James Madison.'' 

This proposition was immediately discussed in the 
house in secret session. Mr. Clay took an active part 

295 



296 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

in the debate. He gave to the measure recommended 
by the President his ardent and unquahfied support. 
" I APPROVE OF it/' said he, " because it is to be 

VIEWED AS A DIRECT PRECURSOR TO WAR." 

Against a storm of opposition Henry Clay pre- 
sented an undaunted front. As the debate was car- 
ried on with closed doors, no ample record of it is in 
existence. But a member of Congress, who was 
present, says : '' On this occasion Mr. Clay was a 
flame of fire. He had now brought Congress to the 
verge of what he conceived to be a war for liberty 
and honor, and his voice rang through the Capitol 
like a trumpet-tone sounding for the onset. On the 
subject of the policy of the embargo, his eloquence, 
like a Roman phalanx, bore down all opposition, and 
he put to shame those of his opponents, who flouted 
the government as being unprepared for war." 

Through the indefatigable exertions ©f Mr. Clay 
and his associates, the attitude of resistance to ag- 
gression was now boldly assumed — the first step was 
taken toward a definite declaration of war. 

A bill from the Committee on Foreign Relations 
was reported to the House on the third of June, 1812, 
declaring li'or bcfzcccii Great Britain and her de- 
pendencies and the United States. On the eighteenth 
it had passed both houses of Congress and the next 
day the President's proclamation was issued, declar- 
ing the actual existence of war. On the sixth of 
July, Congress adjourned to the first Monday in 
November. 

Mr. Clay, ]\Ir. Lowndes, Mr. Cheves, and ]\Ir. 
Calhoun, were the leaders, who sustained and carried 



HENRY CLAY 297 

through the declaration of war. Mr. Clay, fully im- 
pressed with the conviction that the honor and the 
highest interests of the country demanded the decla- 
ration, was ardent, active, and enthusiastic in its 
support. To him was assigned the responsible duty 
of appointing all the committees. Mr. Madison's 
Cabinet was not unanimous on the subject of war. 
Mr. ]^Iadison himself was in favor of it, but seemed 
to go into it with much repugnance and great appre- 
hension. The character of his mind was one of ex- 
treme caution, bordering on timidity, although he 
acted with vigor and firmness when his resolution 
was once taken. Mr. Gallatin, the Secretary of the 
Treasury, was adverse to the war. 

The second session of the Twelfth Congress took 
place at the appointed time. Events of an important 
character had occurred since it last met. The war 
had been prosecuted; and we had sustained some 
reverses. General Hull, to whom had been assigned 
the defence of the ^vlichigan frontier, had, after an 
unsuccessful incursion into the neighboring territory 
of the enemy, surrendered ingloriously the town and 
fort of Detroit. 

An attack was made on the post of the enemy near 
Niagara, by a detachment of regular and other 
forces under ^vlajor-General V^an Rensselaer, and 
after displaying much gallantry had been compelled 
to yield, with considerable loss, to reinforcements of 
savages and British regulars. 

But though partially unsuccessful on the land, the 
Americans had won imperishable trophies on the sea. 
Our public ships and private cruisers had made the 



298 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

enemy sensible of the difference between a reciprocity 
of captures, and the long confinement of them to 
their side. The frigate Constitution, commanded by 
Captain Hull, after a close and short engagement, 
had completely disabled the British frigate Guerriere. 
A vast amount of property had been saved to the 
country by the course pursued by a squadron of our 
frigates under the command of Commodore Rodgers. 

A strong disposition to adjust existing difficulties 
with Great Britain had, in the meantime, been mani- 
fested by our government. Our charge d'affaires at 
London had been authorized to accede to certain 
terms, by which the war might be arrested, without 
awaiting the delays of a formal and final pacification. 

These terms required substantially, that the British 
orders in council should be repealed as they affected 
the United States, without a revival of blockades 
violating acknowledged rules; that there should be 
an immediate discharge of American seamen from 
British ships. On such terms an armistice was pro- 
posed by our government. 

These advances were declined by Great Britain, 
from an avoided repugnance to a suspension of the 
practice of impressment during the armistice. 

Early in January, 1813, a bill from the military 
committee of the House, for the raising of an addi- 
tional force, not exceeding twenty thousand men, 
underwent a long and animated discussion in com- 
mittee of the whole. The opposition, on this occa- 
sion, rallied all their strength to denounce the 
measure. 

On the 8th of January, Mr. Clay rose in defence of 



HENRY CLAY 299 

the new army bill, and in reply to the violent and 
personal remarks, which had fallen from the opposi- 
tion. His effort, on this occasion, was one of the 
most brilliant in his whole career. The members 
crowded around him in hushed admiration ; and there 
were few among them who did not testify by their 
streaming tears his mastery over the passions. The 
subject of impressment was touched upon; and the 
matchless pathos with w^hich he depicted the conse- 
quences of that infernal system — portraying the situ- 
ation of a supposed victim to its tyrannic outrages — 
thrilled through every heart. The reported passage 
can but feebly convey a conception of the impression 
produced. In conclusion, Mr. Clay said : — 

" My plan would be to call out the ample resources of the 
country, give them a judicious direction, prosecute the war 
with the utmost vigor, strike wherever we can reach the 
enemy, at sea or on land, and negotiate the terms of a peace at 
Quebec or at Halifax. We are told that England is a proud 
and lofty nation, which, disdaining to wait for danger, meets 
it half way. Haughty as she is, we once triumphed over her, 
and, if we do not listen to the counsels of timidity and de- 
spair, we shall again prevail. In such a cause, with the aid of 
Providence, we must come out crowned with success ; but if 
we fail, let us fail like men — lash ourselves to our gallant 
tars, and expire together in one common struggle — fighting 

FOR FREE TRADE AND SEAMEN's RIGHTS ! '* 

The army bill, thus advocated by Mr. Clay, passed 
the House on the 14th of January, 181 3, by a vote of 
seventy-seven to forty-two. 

On the loth of February, the President of the Sen- 
ate, in the presence of both houses of Congress, pro- 
ceeded to open the certificates of the votes of the 



300 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

electors of the several States for President and Vice- 
President of the United States. James Madison and 
Elbridge Gerry were elected — the former for a sec- 
ond term. The war policy of the administration was 
triumphantly sustained by the people. 

The first session of the Thirteenth Congress com- 
menced the twenty-fourth of May, 1813. Mr. Clay 
was again chosen Speaker 1)y a large majority, and 
his voice c^f exhortation and encouragement con- 
tinued to be raised in committee of the whole in 
vindicatirm of the honor of the countr}' and the con- 
duct of the war. 

The new Congress had commenced its session at 
a period of general exultation among all patriotic 
Americans. Several honorable victories, by sea and 
land, had shed lustre on our annals. Captain Law- 
rence, of the Hornet, with but eighteen guns, had 
captured, after a brisk and gallant action of fifteen 
minutes, the British sloop-of-war Peacock, Captain 
Peake, carrying twenty-two guns and one hundred 
and thirty men — the latter losing her captain and 
nine men, with thirty wounded, while our loss was 
but one killed and two wounded. York, the capital 
of Upper Canada, had been captured by the army of 
the centre, in connection with a naval force on Lake 
Ontario, under General Dearborn; while the issue 
of the siege of Fort Meigs, under General Harrison, 
had won for that officer an imperishable renown as 
a brave and skilful soldier. 

In September of the preceding year, the Emperor 
Alexander of Russia, had intimated to Mr. Adams, 
our minister at St. Petersburg, his intention of ten- 



♦'. 



HENRY CLAY 3OI 

dering his services as mediator between the United 
States and Great Britain. The proposition had been 
favorably received, and assurances had been given to 
the Emperor of the earnest desire of our government 
that the interest of Russia might remain entirely un- 
affected by the existing war between us and Eng- 
land, and that no more intimate connections with 
France would be formed by the United States. With 
these assurances the Emperor had been highly grati- 
fied ; and in the early part of March, 1813, the Rus- 
sian minister at Washington, M. Daschkoff, had for- 
mally proffered the mediation of his government, 
which was readily accepted by the President. It was 
rejected, however by the British Government, to the 
great surprise of our own, on the ground that their 
commercial and maritime rights would not thereby 
be as effectually secured as they deemed necessary; 
but, accompanying the rejection, was an expression 
of willingness to treat directly with the United 
States, either at Gottingen or -at London; and the 
interposition of the Emperor was requested in favor 
of such an arrangement. 

In consequence of the friendly offer of the Russian 
Government, Messrs. Albert Gallatin and James A. 
Bayard, had been sent to join our resident minister, 
Mr. Adams, as envoys-extraordinary at St. Peters- 
burg. The proposal of the British ministry, to treat 
with us at Gottingen, was soon after accepted, and 
Messrs. Clay and Jonathan Russell were appointed, 
in conjunction with the three plenipotentiaries then 
in Russia, to conduct the negotiations. On the 19th 
of January, 18 14, Mr. Clay, in an appropriate ad- 



302 



AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 



dress, accordingly resigned his station as Speaker of 
the House. The same day a resolution was passed 
by that body thanking him for the ability and im- 
partiality with which he had presided. 

Having been the most efficient leader in directing 
the legislative action which originated and directed 
to a prosperous termination the war with Great 
Britain — a war which the voice of an impartial pos- 
terity must admit to have elevated and strengthened 
us as a nation — ]\lr. Clay was now appropriately se- 
lected as one of the commissioners to arrange a treaty 
of peace. 



I 



CHAPTER IV 

Treaty of Ghent. — Mr. Clay's Return. 

The commissioners met first at Gottingen, but 
their meetings were afterward transferred to Ghent. 
The conferences occupied a space of time of about 
five months. 

Such was Mr. Clay's pride of country that he had 
resolved not to go to England until he had heard of 
the ratification of the treaty of Ghent. After the 
termination of the negotiations he went to Paris, and 
accepted the invitation of Mr. Crawford, our minis- 
ter, to take apartments in his hotel. Mr. Clay re- 
mained in Paris during upwards of two months. 

During his stay in Paris, Mr. Clay heard of the 
issue of the battle of New Orleans. " Now," said 
he to his informant, " I can go to England without 
mortification." 

Mr. Clay was in London when the battle of 
Waterloo was fought, and witnessed the illumina- 
tions, bonfires, and rejoicings, to which it gave rise. 
For a day or two, it was a matter of great uncer- 
tainty what had become of Napoleon. During this 
interval of anxious suspense, Mr. Clay dined at Lord 
Castlereagh's with the American envoys, Messrs. 
Adams and Gallatin, and the British ministry. Bona- 
parte's flight and probable place of refuge became the 

30s 



304 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

topics of conversation. Among other conjectures, It 
was suggested that he might have gone to the United 
States; and Lord Liverpool, addressing Mr. Clay, 
asked: '' If he goes there, will he not give you a 
good deal of trouble? " — " Not the least, my lord," 
replied Mr. Clay, with his hal)itual promptitude — 
'' we shall be very glad to receive him ; we would 
treat him with all hospitality, a)id zrry sooii uiakc of 
him a good democrat." 

The reply produced a very hearty peal of laughter 
from the whole company. 

Mr. Clay was received in the British circles, both 
of the ministry and the opposition, with the most 
friendly consideration. 

In Sei)tcml)cr, 181 5, Mr. Clay returned to his own 
country, arriving in New York, which port he had 
left in March, 18 14. 

Tn anticipation of his return home, Mr. Clay had 
been unanimcnisly re-elected a member of Congress 
from the district he formerly rei)resented. Doubts 
arising as to the legality of this election, a new one 
was ordered, and the result was the same. 

On the fourth of December, 181 5, the Fourteenth 
Congress met, in its first session. Mr. Clay was 
again elected Speaker of the House of Representa- 
tives, almost unanimously — receiving, upon the first 
balloting, eighty-seven out of one hundred and 
twenty-two votes cast — thirteen being the highest 
number given for any one of the five opposing candi- 
dates. He was, at this time, just recovering from a 
serious indisposition, but accepting the office in a 
brief and appropriate speech, acknowledging the 



HENRY CLAY 305 

honor conferred upon him, and pledging his best ef- 
forts for the proper discharge of its duties. 

Among the important subjects which came up, 
that of the new treaty was, of course, among the 
foremost. John Randolph and the Federalists, after 
having resisted the war, now took frequent occasion 
to sneer at the mode of its termination. On the 29th 
of January, 1816, Mr. Clay addressed the committee 
of the House most eloquently in reply to these 
cavillers. 

" I gave a vote," said he, " for the declaration of war. I 
exerted all the little influence and talents I could command 
to make the war. The war was made. It is terminated. And I 
declare, with perfect sincerity, if it had been permitted to me 
to lift the veil of futurity, and to have foreseen the precise 
series of events which has occurred, my vote would have been 
unchanged. We had been insulted, and outraged, and spol- 
iated upon by almost all Europe — by Great Britain, by France, 
Spain, Denmark, Naples, and, to cap the climax, by the little 
contemptible power of Algiers. We had submitted too long 
and too much. We had become the scorn of foreign powers, 
and the derision of our own citizens." 

In conclusion, Mr. Clay declared, on this occasion, 
that his policy, in regard to the attitude in which the 
country should now be placed, was to preserve the 
present force, naval and military — to provide for the 
augmentation of the navy — to fortify the weak and 
vulnerable points indicated by experience — to con- 
struct military roads and canals — and, in short, '* to 

COMMENCE THE GREAT WORK OF INTERNAL IM- 
PROVEMENT."'' 

" I would sec," he said, " a chain of turnpike roads and 
canals from Passamaquoddy to New Orleans; and other sim- 

A. B., VOL. VI. — 20 



306 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

ilar roads intersecting mountains, to facilitate intercourse be- 
tween all parts of the country, and to bind and connect us 
together. I would also effectually protect our manufac- 
tories. I would afford them protection, not so much for the 
sake of the manufacturers themselves, as for the general 
interest." 

It was in this patriotic spirit, and impelled by this 
far-sighted, liberal, and truly American policy, that 
Mr. Clay resumed his legislative labors in the na- 
tional counsels. 



i 



CHAPTER V 

The United States Bank. — South American Independence. 

The financial condition of the United States, at 
the close of the war, was extremely depressed. The 
currency was deranged, public credit impaired, and 
a heavy debt impending. In his message, at the 
opening of the session of i8 15-16, President Madi- 
son stated the condition of public affairs, and indi- 
cated the establishment of a national bank, and of a 
protective tariff, as the two great measures of relief. 

On the 8th of January, 18 16, Air. Calhoun, from 
the committee on that part of the President's mes- 
sage relating to the currency, reported a bill to in- 
corporate the subscribers to a Bank of the United 
States. 

Mr. Clay, in 181 1, while a member of the Senate, 
had opposed the rechartering of the old bank. 

When the application was made to renew the old 
charter of the Bank of the United States, such an 
institution did not appear to him to be so necessary 
to the fulfilment of any of the objects specifically 
enumerated in the Constitution, as to justify Con- 
gress in assuming, by construction, power to estab- 
lish it. It was supported mainly upon the ground 
that it was indispensable to the Treasury operations. 
But the local institutions in the several States, were 

307 



308 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

at that time in prosperous existence, confided in by 
the community, having confidence in one another, 
and maintaining an intercourse and connection the 
most intimate. Many of them were actually em- 
ployed by the Treasury, to aid that department in a 
part of its fiscal arrangements ; and they appeared to 
him to be fully capable of affording to it all the 
facilities that it ought to desire in all of them. They 
superseded, in his judgment the necessity of a na- 
tional institution. 

But how stood the case in 1816, when he was 
called upon again to examine the power of the Gen- 
eral Government to incorporate a national bank? A 
total change of circumstances was presented. Events 
of the utmost magnitude had intervened. A sus- 
pension of specie payments had taken place. The 
currency of the country was completely vitiated. 
The government issued paper bearing an interest of 
six per cent., which it pledged the faith of the coun- 
try to redeem. For this paper, guaranteed by the 
honor and faith of the government, there was ob- 
tained for every one hundred dollars, eighty dollars 
from those banks which suspended specie payments. 
The experience of the war, therefore, showed the 
necessity of a bank. The country could not get 
along without it. Mr. Clay had then changed his 
opinion on the subject and he had never attempted 
to disguise the fact. In his position as Speaker of the 
House, he might have locked up his opinion in his 
own breast. But with that condor and fearless- 
ness which ever distinguished him, he came for- 
ward, as honest men ought to come forward, and 



HENRY CLAY 309 

expressed his change of opinion, at the time when 
President Madison, and other eminent men, changed 
their course in relation to the bank. 

The bill to recharter the bank was discussed for 
several weeks in the House, and on the loth of April 
the bill became a law, by the signature of the Presi- 
dent. The wisdom of the supporters of the measure 
was soon made manifest in the fact that the institu- 
tion more than realized the most sanguine hopes of 
its friends. During the period of its existence, the 
United States enjoyed a currency of unexampled 
purity and uniformity ; and the bills of the bank were 
as acceptable as silver in every quarter of the globe. 

On the 6th of March, 1816, Col. Richard M. John- 
son, from a committee appointed for the purpose, re- 
ported a bill changing the mode of compensation to 
members of Congress. The pay of members, at that 
time, was six dollars a day — an amount which, from 
its inadequacy, threatened to place the legislation of 
the country in the hands of the wealthy. The new^ 
bill gave members a salary of fifteen hundred dollars 
a year — to the presiding officer twice that amount. 
It passed both houses without opposition. Mr. Clay 
preferred the increase of the daily compensation to 
the institution of a salary, but the majority were 
against him, and he acquiesced in their decision. 

He never canvassed for a seat in the House of 
Representatives but on one occasion, and that was 
after the passage of this unpalatable bill. It pro- 
duced very, great dissatisfaction throughout the 
United States, and extended to the district which he 
represented. 



310 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

During the canvass, Mr. Clay encountered an old 
hunter, who had always before been his w^arm friend, 
but now was opposed to his election on account of 
the compensation bill. " Have you a good rifle, my 
friend? " asked Mr. Clay.—" Yes."—" Does it ever 
flash! "—" Once only," he replied.—" What did you 
do with it — throw it away?" — "No, I picked the 
flint, tried it again, and brought down the game." — 
" Have I ever flashed but upon the compensation 
bill?"_-No."— " Will you throw me away?"— 
" No, no! " exclaimed the hunter, with enthusiasm, 
nearly overpowered by his feelings ; " I will pick the 
flint, and try you again ! " He was afterward a 
warm supporter of Mr. Clay. 

This anecdote reminds us of another, which is il- 
lustrative of that trait of boldness and self-posses- 
sion, in the manifestation of which Mr. Clay has 
never been known to fail during his public career 
At the time that he was a candidate for election to 
the legislature of Kentucky, in 1803, while passing 
a few weeks at the Olympian Springs, a number of 
huntsmen, old and young, assembled to hear him 
make a " stump speech." When he had finished, one 
of the audience, an ancient Nimrod, who had stood 
leaning upon his rifle for some time, regarding the 
young orator with keen attention, commenced a con- 
versation with him. 

" Young man," said he, " you want to go to the 
legislature, I see? " 

" Why, yes," replied Mr. Clay, " since I have con- 
sented to be a candidate, I would prefer not to be 
defeated." 



HENRY CLAY 311 






Are you a good shot? " 
Try me." 

Very well ; I would like to see a specimen of your 
qualifications for the legislature. Come: we must 
see you shoot." 

'' But I have no rifle here." 

" No matter : here is old Bess ; and she never fails 
in the hands of a marksman ; she has often sent death 
through a squirrel's head at one hundred yards, and 
daylight through many a redskin twice that distance ; 
if you can shoot with any gun, you can shoot with 
old Bess." 

"Well, well: put up your mark, put up your 
mark," said Mr. Clay. 

The target was placed at the distance of about 
eighty yards, when, with all the coolness and steadi- 
ness of an experienced marksman, he lifted " old 
Bess " to his shoulder, fired, and pierced the very 
centre of the target. 

"Oh, a chance shot! a chance shot!" exclaimed 
several of his political opponents. " He might shoot 
all day and not hit the mark again. Let him try it 
over — let him try it over." 

"No; beat that, and then I will," retorted Mr. 
Clay. But as no one seemed disposed to make the 
attempt, it was considered that he had given satis- 
factory proof of his superiority as a marksman ; and 
this felicitous accident gained him the vote of every 
hunter in the assembly. The most remarkable 
feature in the transaction remains to be told. " I 
had never," said Mr. Clay, " fired a rifle before, and 
never have since." It is needless to add that the elec- 
tion resulted in his favor. 



312 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

On the 4th of March, 1817, James Monroe took 
the oath prescribed by the Constitution, and entered 
upon the duties of the presidency of the United 
States. The first session of the Fifteenth Congress 
commenced the ensuing December. Mr. Clay was 
again chosen Speaker. 

It would be impossible, in the brief space we have 
allotted to ourselves, to present even a brief abstract 
of his remarks upon the many important topics which 
now claimed the attention of Congress. 

During the summer of 18 16, the President had 
appointed Messrs. Rodney, Graham, and Bland, 
commissioners to proceed to South America, to ascer- 
tain the condition of the country. Both Congress 
and the President were opposed to any recognition 
of the independence of the South American colonists. 
In rising to promulgate views hostile to theirs, Mr. 
Clay maintained that an oppressed people were 
authorized, whenever they could, to rise and break 
their fetters. This was the great principle of the 
English revolution. It was the great principle of our 
own. Vattel, if authority were wanting, expressly 
supports this right. 

Having shown that the cause of the South Ameri- 
can patriots was just, Mr. Clay proceeded to inquire 
what course of policy it became us to adopt. He 
maintained that a recognition of their independence 
was compatible with perfect neutrality and with the 
most pacific relations toward old Spain. 

After demonstrating that the United States were 
bound, on their own principles, to acknowledge the 
independence of the United Provinces of the river 



HENRY CLAY 313 

Platte, he alluded to the improbability that any of 
the European monarchies would set the example of 
recognition. " Are we not bound," he asked, *' upon 
our own principles, to acknowledge this new repub- 
lic? If WE do not, zuho zvill? '' 

The simple words, '' zvho willf " are said, by an 
intelligent observer, who was present, to have been 
uttered in a tone of such thrilling pathos, as to stir 
up the deepest sensibilities of the audience. It is by 
such apparent simple appeals that Mr. Clay, with 
the aid of his exquisitely modulated voice, often pro- 
duced the most powerful and lasting effects. 

After repeated efforts and repeated failures to 
carry his generous measures in behalf of South 
American liberty, Mr. Clay, on the tenth of Febru- 
ary, 1 82 1, submitted for consideration a resolution 
declaring that the House of Representatives partici- 
pated with the people of the United States, in the 
deep interest which they felt for the success of the 
Spanish provinces of South America, which w^ere 
struggling to establish their liberty and independ- 
ence ; and that it would give its constitutional support 
to the President of the United States, whenever he 
might deem it expedient to recognize the sovereignty 
and independence of those provinces. 

On this resolution a debate of nearly four hours 
ensued, in which Mr. Clay sustained the principal 
part. It was carried. 

On the 8th day of March, 1822, the President sent 
a message to the House of Representatives, recom- 
mending the recognition of South American inde- 
pendence. The recommendation was referred to the 



314 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

Committee on Foreign Relations, which, on the 19th 
of the same month, reported in favor of the recom- 
mendation, and of an appropriation to carry it into 
effect. The vote of recognition was finally passed 
on the 28th, with but a single dissenting voice. 

Such is a brief sketch of Mr. Clay's magnanimous 
efforts in behalf of South American independence. 
His zeal in the cause was unalloyed by one selfish 
impulse, or one personal aim. He could hope to gain 
no political capital by his course. He appealed to no 
sectional interest ; sustained no party policy ; labored 
for no wealthy client ; secured the influence of no 
man, or set of men, in his championship of a remote, 
unfriended, and powerless people. Congress and the 
President were vehemently opposed to his proposi- 
tion. But in the face of discomfiture, he persevered, 
till he succeeded in making converts of his opponents, 
and in effecting the triumph of his measure. 

The effect of his spirit-stirring appeal in cheering 
the patriots of South America, was most gratifying 
and decided. His memorable plea of March, 18 18, 
was, as one of his most embittered adversaries has 
told us, read at the head of the South American 
armies, to exalt their enthusiasm in battle, and 
quicken the consummation of their triumphs. 



CHAPTER VI 

Internal Improvement. — Protection. 

We have seen that from an early period Mr. Clay 
was an advocate of the doctrine of internal improve- 
ment. His speech in Congress in 1806 had been in 
vindication of the policy authorizing the erection of 
a bridge across the Potomac River. In January, 
18 16, he declared himself in favor not only of a sys- 
tem of internal improvement, but of protection to 
our manufactures. 

It will be remembered that the bill appropriating 
for purposes of internal improvement the bonus 
which was to be paid by the Bank of the United 
States to the General Government, after having been 
passed by Congress, had been returned by President 
Madison w^ithout his signature, in consequence of 
constitutional objections to the bill. Mr. Monroe, 
in anticipation of the action of Congress, had ex- 
pressed an opinion in his message opposed to the 
right of Congress to establish a system of internal 
improvement. Mr. Jefferson's authority was also 
cited to show that, under the Constitution, roads and 
canals could not be constructed by the General Gov- 
ernment without the consent of the State or States 
through which they were to pass. Thus three suc- 
cessive presidents had opposed the proposition. 



3l6 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

Against this weight of precedent, Mr. Clay under- 
took to persuade Congress of their power under the 
Constitution to appropriate money for the construc- 
tion of mihtary roads, post-roads and canals. A 
resolution, embodying a clause to this effect, came 
before the House in March, 1818; and he lent to it 
his unremitting advocacy. 

Mr. Clay's motion, recognizing in Congress the 
constitutional power to make appropriations for in- 
ternal improvements, was finally carried by a vote 
of ninety to seventy-five. The victory was a most 
signal one, obtained, as it was, over the transmitted 
prejudices of two previous administrations, and the 
active opposition of the one in power. 

From that period to his final retirement from the 
Senate he was the ever-vigilant and persevering ad- 
vocate of internal improvements. 

During the second session of the Fifteenth Con- 
gress, in January, 1819, the subject of General An- 
drew Jackson's conduct in his celebrated Florida 
campaign came up for discussion. That chieftain, 
after subjecting the vanquished Indians to conditions 
the most cruel and impracticable, had hung two pris- 
oners-of-war, Arbuthnot and Ambrister, and con- 
cluded his series of outrages by lawlessly seizing the 
Spanish posts of St. Marks and Pensacola. 

Committees of the Senate and the House made 
reports reprobatory of his conduct; and resolutions 
were presented, expressive of the same sentiment. 
Mr. Clay, grateful for the public services of the gen- 
eral, treated him with a forbearance and kindness 
which rendered the sincerity of his animadversions 



HENRY CLAY 317 

the more obvious " \\'ith respect to the purity of 
his intentions," said Mr. Clay, " I am disposed to 
allow it in the most extensive degree. Of his acts it 
is my duty to speak with the freedom which belongs 
to my station." 

The Speaker then proceeded to expose, in a most 
forcible point of view, the dangerous and arbitrary 
character of those acts, and the constitutional viola- 
tions of which General Jackson had been guilty. 

Even at that distant day, Mr. Clay saw in the con- 
duct of General Jackson, the indications of that im- 
perious will — of that spirit of insubordination — - 
which, dangerous as they were in a military com- 
mander, were not less pernicious and alarming in a 
civil chief magistrate. With his keen, instinctive 
faculty of penetration, he discovered the despotic and 
impulsive character of the man. 

How, then, when the question was presented to 
him of deciding between the qualifications of John 
Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson for the presi- 
dency of the United States — how could Henry Clay, 
as a consistent and honorable man, hesitate for a 
moment in his choice? And yet an amount of ob- 
loquy and vituperation, such as never before was 
heaped upon a public servant, has been lavished on 
him because of his refusing to vote for General Jack- 
son on that occasion! Had he done so, he would 
have been false to his past professions and convic- 
tions — false to conscience, to patriotism, and the 
plainest dictates of duty. 

We come now to one of the most important epochs 
in Mr. Clay's public history. In the opinion of a 



3l8 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

large portion of the people of the United States, it is 
to his long-continued, arduous, and triumphant ef- 
forts in the cause of protection to American industry 
and skill, that he will be indebted for his highest and 
most enduring fame. We have seen that, as far back 
as 1810, he laid the foundation-stone of that great 
and beneficent American system, of which he was 
the originator and the architect. 

To specify and describe all his labors in the estab- 
lishment and advancement of his noble policy, from 
that time to the period of his retirement from the 
Senate, would alone fill more space than we can give 
to his whole life. The journals of Congress, and 
the political newspapers of the country, for the last 
thirty years, will be found to be occupied, to no in- 
considerable extent, with the record of his efforts, 
and arguments, and untiring appeals. 

On the 1 2th of March, 1816, Mr. Lowndes, of 
South Carolina, from the Committee of Ways and 
Means, introduced before the House a bill " to regu- 
late the duties on imports and tonnage, &c." The 
bill was avowedly favorable to a tariff of protection ; 
and, strange as the record may seem, one of its most 
ardent supporters was John C. Calhoun. The whole 
question was debated with reference to the protective 
policy. It was thoroughly discussed in committee 
of the whole ; and, through the exertions of Mr. Clay, 
a higher duty was adopted for the important article 
of woollens. The amendment, however, was unfor- 
tunately lost in the House; but the bill, such as it 
was, passed. 

In the spring of 1820, the subject of a tariff again 



HENRY CLAY 319 

came before Congress; and Mr. Clay made a most 
interesting and impressive speech in favor of pro- 
tective duties. The tariff was remodelled by the 
House, but their bill was rejected by the vSenate. 

In 1823, the health of Mr. Clay was very poor — so 
much so that his life was despaired of by both his 
friends and himself. He had attended the Olympian 
springs in Kentucky, in the summer, had been placed 
under a strict regimen, and subjected to a long course 
of medicine. In spite of all remedies, he felt a 
gradual decline, and looked forward to a speedy dis- 
solution. In November he was to start for Wash- 
ington, and fully anticipated, that after reaching that 
city, if he reached it at all, he should be obliged to 
hasten to the south as a last resort. He procured a 
small travelling carriage and a saddle-horse — threw 
aside all the prescriptions of the physician, and com- 
menced his journey. Daily he walked on foot, drove 
in his carriage, and rode on horseback. He arrived 
at Washington quite well, was elected Speaker and 
went through more labor than he ever performed in 
an}^ other session, excepting, perhaps, the extra ses- 
sion of 1 841. 

The condition of the country, in 1824, was far 
from prosperous. The amount of our exports had 
diminished to an alarming degree, while our imports 
of foreign goods had greatly increased. The coun- 
try was thus drained of its currency; and its com- 
merce was crippled. Nor was there any home-mar- 
ket for the staple productions of our soil. Both 
cotton-planters and wool-growers shared in the gen- 
eral prostration ; and even the farmer had to sell his 



320 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

produce at a loss, or keep it on hand till it was ruined. 
Labor could with difficulty find employment ; and its 
wages were hardly sufficient to supply the bare neces- 
saries of life. Money could be procured only at 
enormous sacrifices. Distress and bankruptcy per- 
vaded every class of the community. 

In January, 1824, a tariff bill was reported by the 
Committee on Manufactures of the House; and in 
March following, Mr. Clay made his great and ever- 
memorable speech in the House, in support of Ameri- 
can industry. 

The tariff bill finally passed the House, the i6th 
of April, 1824, by a vote of 107 to 102. It soon 
afterward became a law. 



CHAPTER VII 

Missouri. 

During the session of 1820-21, the ''distracting 
question," as it was termed, of admitting Missouri 
into the Union, which had been the subject of many 
angry and tedious debates, was discussed in both 
branches of Congress. The controverted point was, 
whether she should be admitted as a slave State. 

Slavery had been expressly excluded from Ohio, 
Indiana, and Illinois, by acts of Congress, on their 
admission into the Union. But that restriction was 
by virtue of an ordinance of the former Congress, 
under the confederation, prohibiting the introduction 
of slavery into the northwest territory, out of which 
these States were formed. Missouri was part of the 
Louisiana territory, purchased of France, in 1803. 
And in various parts of that extensive territory, 
slavery then existed, and had long been established. 

Louisiana had been admitted into the Union with- 
out restriction of the kind proposed for Missouri. 
The States of Kentucky, Tenness^ie, Mississippi, and 
Alabama, had also been admitted as separate States 
previous to this period ; and, as they were taken from 
States in which slavery existed, they had been made 
subject to no such restriction. It was contended that, 
on the same principle, Missouri should also be re- 

A. B., VOL. VI. — 21 321 



322 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

ceived, without requiring, as a condition of admis- 
sion, the exclusion of slavery. And it was also in- 
sisted that it would be interfering with the inde- 
pendent character of a State, to enforce any such 
restriction, which was manifestly a subject of regu- 
lation by the State authority. 

On the contrary, it was urged that in the old States 
the subject was expressly settled by the Constitution, 
and Congress could not justly interfere in those 
States ; but that it was otherwise with new States 
received into the Union ; in which case Congress had 
the right to impose such restrictions and conditions 
as it might choose; that it was evidently the inten- 
tion of the old Congress not to extend slavery, hav- 
ing prohibited its introduction or existence in new 
States to be formed out of the northwest territory; 
and that slavery was so great an evil, and so abhor- 
rent to the principles of a free government, that it 
should be abolished or prohibited wherever it could 
be constitutionally affected. 

The discussion went on from month to month, and 
from session to session, increasing in fierceness, and 
diverging farther and farther from the prospect of an 
amicable settlement. 

A bill for the admission of Missouri had been de- 
feated during the session of 1818-19; and the in- 
flammatory subject had, during the vacation of Con- 
gress, given rise to incessant contention. The vote 
in the House of Representatives was several times 
given for excluding slavery; but the Senate dis- 
agreed, and would not yield to the House. 

In 1820, the people of the territory of Missouri 



HENRY CLAY 323 

proceeded to ordain and establish a constitution of 
government for the contemplated State. Among 
other provisions, it was ordained in the twenty-sixth 
section of the third article, that it should be the duty 
of the general assembly, as soon as might he, to pass 
such lazvs as zuere necessary to prevent free negroes 
and niulattocs from coining to and settling in the 
State, under any pretext zvhatever/' Under this 
constitution a State government was organized and 
went into operation. 

This clause, for the exclusion of free negroes and 
mulattoes, fanned into fresh life the flame of excite- 
ment which had been partially allayed. The whole 
country was now thrown into commotion upon the 
question of admitting Missouri. 

In the autumn of 1820, Mr. Clay, who had expe- 
rienced heavy pecuniary losses by endorsing for a 
friend, resolved to retire from Congress, and, in the 
practice of the law, devote himself to the reparation 
of his private affairs. 

In view of the agitating question before Congress, 
Mr. Clay consented, however, to retain his seat as a 
member of the House till his term of service expired, 
although he resigned the Speakership and was no 
longer its presiding officer. Early in the session the 
Missouri question came up. Those who now op- 
posed its admission contended, that free citizens and 
mulattoes were citizens of the States of their resi- 
dence ; that as such, they had a right under the Con- 
stitution, to remove to Missouri, or any other State 
of the Union, and there enjoy all the privileges and 
immunities of other citizens of the United States 



324 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

emigrating to the same place; and, therefore, that 
the clause in the constitution of Missouri, quoted 
above, was repugnant to that of the United States, 
and she ought not to be received into the Union. 

On the other hand, it was maintained that the 
African race, whether bond or free, were not parties 
to our political institutions; that, therefore, free 
negroes and mulattoes were not citizens, within the 
meaning of the Constitution of the United States; 
and even if the constitution of Missouri were re- 
pugnant to that of the United States, the latter was 
paramount, and would overrule the conflicting pro- 
vision of the former, without the interference of 
Congress. 

Such was the perilous and portentous question 
which now threatened a disruption of the Union. In 
some shape or other, it was presented almost daily 
and hourly to Congress; and became, at length, a 
perfect incubus upon legislation. In this state of 
things, Mr. Clay arrived in Washington, and took 
his seat in the House on the sixteenth of January, 
1 82 1. On the second of February, he submitted a 
motion to refer a resolution of the Senate on the 
Missouri question to a committee of thirteen — a 
number suggested by that of the original States of 
the Union. The motion was agreed to, and a com- 
mittee appointed accordingly. 

On the tenth of the same month, Mr. Clay made 
a report, concluding with an amendment to the Sen- 
ate's resolution, by which amendment Missouri was 
admitted upon the condition that 
"the said State shall never pass any law preventmg any de- 



HENRY CLAY 325 

scription of persons from comino^ to and settling in the said 
State, who now are or hereafter may become citizens of any 
of Ihc States of this Union; and provided also, that the legis- 
lature of the said State, by a solemn public act, shall declare 
the assent of the said State to the said fundamental condition, 
and shall transmit to the president of the United States, on 
or before the fourth INIonday in November next, an authentic 
copy of the said act ; upon the receipt whereof, the president, 
by proclamation, shall announce the fact ; whereupon, and 
without any further proceedings on the part of Congress, the 
admission of the said State into the Union shall be considered 
as complete." 

The question being taken in committee of the 
whole on the amendment proposed by Mr. Clay, it 
was decided in the negative. 

The rejection of Mr. Clay's report seemed to shut 
out all prospect of an amicable compromise. He was 
not disheartened, however. He never despaired of 
the republic. On the twenty-second of February, he 
submitted a resolution for the appointment of a joint 
committee of the two houses of Congress to inquire 
and report on the subject. 

This resolution was adopted in the House, and the 
Senate acceded to it. 

The joint committees of the two houses met on the 
twenty-fifth of February, 1821; and a plan of ac- 
commodation, proposed by Mr. Clay, was adopted, 
unanimously on the part of the committee of the Sen- 
ate, and nearly so by that of the House. The next 
day he reported to the House from the committee a 
resolution which was the same in effect as that which 
we have already quoted as having been reported by 
the former committee of thirteen members. The 
resolution was adopted by a vote of eighty-seven to 



326 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

eighty-one. The Senate concurred, and the momen- 
tous question, which for three sessions had agitated 
Congress, was, at length, through the labors of 
Henry Clay, peaceably settled. 

The achievement of this vital compromise must 
have been one of the most gratifying triumphs of his 
political career. By his personal influence and abili- 
ties, he had saved the republic. He deservedly won 
on this occasion the appropriate title of " the Great 
Pacificator;" for to his individual exertions do we 
owe it, that we were saved from the prospect of a 
dissolution of the Union. 

By an absence of nearly three years from Con- 
gress, Mr. Clay was enabled, through his profes- 
sional labors, to retrieve his private affairs ; and, in 
the summer of 1823, at the earnest and repeated 
solicitations of his fellow-citizens, he accepted a re- 
nomination, and was again chosen, without opposi- 
tion, to represent his district in the lower House at 
Washington. 

The first session of the Eighteenth Congress 
opened the first Monday in December, 1823. At the 
first ballot for Speaker, in the House of Representa- 
tives, Mr. Clay was elected and his labors, during the 
session of 1824, would alone have been sufficient to 
make his name memorable, to the latest posterity, in 
the annals of the country. The session is signalized 
by the passage of the tariff bill and of his measure 
in behalf of South American independence. 

We have seen that Mr. Clay was at variance with 
President Monroe upon the subject of internal im- 
provements, as well as in regard to the mode of 



HENRY CLAY 32/ 

recognizing the independence of the South American 
patriots. Notwithstanding these differences of 
opinion, the personal relations of the Speaker and 
the Chief Magistrate were friendly. Mr. Clay was 
offered a seat in the Cabinet, and a carte blanche of 
all the foreign missions. Had place been his ambi- 
tion and his object, he might have attained it with- 
out any sacrifice of independence — without any loss 
of position as the acknowledged head of the great 
Republican party. He saw, however, that he could 
be more useful to his country in Congress. 



- CHAPTER VIII 

Presidential Election of 1824, 

As Mr. Monroe's second presidential term drew to 
a close, the question of the next presidency began to 
be busily agitated. Four prominent candidates were 
presented by their friends for the suffrages of the 
people : being John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, 
Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, Henry Clay of Ken- 
tucky, and William H. Crawford of Georgia. 

In November, 1822, Mr. Clay had been nominated 
as a suitable successor to James Monroe, at a meet- 
ing of the members of the legislature of Kentucky. 
The nomination soon after met with a res^xDuse from 
similar meetings in Louisiana, Missouri, and Ohio ; 
and, as the period of the election approached, he was 
hailed by large bodies of his fellow-citizens in all 
parts of the country as their favorite candidate. 

The campaign of 1824 was one of the most warm- 
ly-contested in our annals. Some of the more un- 
scrupulous of the friends of the various candidates 
resorted to manoeuvres unworthy of their cause to 
advance their ends. Just as the election was com- 
mencing, a report was industriously circulated in dif- 
ferent quarters of the country that Mr. Clay had 
withdrawn from the presidential contest. In conse- 
quence of this report, General William H. Harrison, 

328 



HENRY CLAY 329 

and other of Mr. Clay's friends in Ohio, pubHshed a 
declaration, in which it was asserted that he (Mr. 
Clay) '' would not be withdrawn from the contest 
but by the fiat of his Maker." Our late lamented 
Chief Magistrate was at that time, and ever after, 
his devoted political, as well as personal friend ; and 
he has often been heard to declare his preference for 
him over all other candidates. 

Early in the campaign it was discovered that there 
would be no election of President by the people. By 
the Constitution, the House of Representatives 
would, therefore, be called upon to choose from the 
three highest candidates. In December, 1824, soon 
after the meeting of Congress, it was known that the 
three highest candidates were Jackson, Adams, and 
Crawford, and that Mr. Clay and his friends would 
have it in their power, when the question came be- 
fore the House, of turning the balance in favor of 
any one of the three. 

On the 9th of February, 1825, in the presence of 
both houses of Congress, Mr. Tazewell, from the 
Committee of Tellers, reported the votes of the dif- 
ferent States for President and Vice-President of 
the United States. The aggregate was as follows : 
John Ouincy Adams had eighty-four votes ; William 
H. Crawford, forty-one; Andrew Jackson, ninety- 
nine; and Henry Clay, thirty-seven — the latter hav- 
ing been deprived, by party intrigue and chicanery, 
of votes in New York and Louisiana — which would 
have carried him into the House, where he would un- 
doubtedly have been elected President over all other 
candidates. 



330 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

The President of the Senate rose, and declared 
that no person had received a majority of the votes 
given for President of the United States ; — that An- 
drew Jackson, John Q. Adams, and WilHam H. 
Crawford, were the three persons who had received 
the highest number of votes, and that the remaining 
duties in the choice of a President now devolved on 
the House of Representatives. He further declared, 
that John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, having re- 
ceived one hundred and eighty-two votes, was duly 
elected Vice-President of the United States, to serve 
for four years from the ensuing fourth day of March. 
The members of the Senate then retired. 

We have seen what were Mr. Clay's views of the 
character of General Jackson so far back as 1819, 
when the Seminole question was before the House. 
Was it possible that he should regard those traits 
which, in the soldier, had led to conduct at war with 
the Constitution, as qualifications in the President? 
General Jackson was, furthermore, understood to be 
hostile to those great systems of internal improve- 
ment and protection to home manufactures, which 
Mr. Clay had spent the best part of his public life in 
establishing. At least the general's views were vacil- 
lating and undecided on these points. Could Mr. 
Clay be called upon to sacrifice those important in- 
terests on the shrine of merely sectional partiality — 
for the sake of having a \\'estern rather than an 
Eastern man to preside over the Union ? 

No ! Henry Clay was not to be influenced by such 
narrow and unworthy considerations. He has him- 
self said : '' Had I voted for General Jackson in op- 



HENRY CLAY 33 1 

position to the well-known opinions which I enter- 
tained of him, one-tenth part of the ingenuity and 
zeal which have been employed to excite prejudice 
against me would have held me up to universal con- 
tempt; and, zvhat zvoiild have been worse, I should 
have felt that I really deserved it." According to the 
testimony of his friend, General Call, General Jack- 
son himself never expected that he would receive the 
vote of Mr. Clay, who unhesitatingly gave it for 
Mr. Adams, and decided the election in his favor. 
He went further. When, after he was seated in the 
presidential chair, Mr. Adams offered him the Secre- 
taryship of State, he had the moral courage to accept 
it in defiance of the storm of calumny, exasperation, 
and malignant opposition, which he knew that act 
would bring down upon him. 

This was a critical period in Mr. Clay's public life 
— a bold, intrepid, and magnanimous movement. 
We know that he now thinks it was a mistaken one. 
In his speech of the 9th of June, 1842, at Lexington, 
he says : — 

" My error in accepting the office arose out of my underrat- 
ing the pozver of detraction and the force of ignorance, and 
abiding with too sure a confidence in the conscious integrity 
and uprightness of my own motives." 

With deference, we must express our dissent from 
Mr. Clay in regarding his acceptance of office under 
Mr. Adams as an " error." It may have been, so far 
as his personal interests zvere concerned, erroneous, 
and impolitic; but, in reference to his public duties, 
it was right ; it was honest ; it was courageous. Both 
Madison and Monroe had offered him the highest 



332 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

offices in tlieir gift; but the country was at those 
times in such a state, that he thought he could make 
himself more useful in Congress; and he refused 
them. None but the ignorant and base-minded could 
credit the monstrous assertion, that he had made the 
promise of the Secretaryship the condition of giving 
his vote for Mr. Adams. 

Mr. Clay entered upon the duties of his new post 
in March, 1825. In him the House of Representa- 
tives lost the ablest and most efficient Speaker that 
had ever graced the chair. The best proof of his 
popularity may be found in the eloquent fact, that 
from the time of his first entry into the House in 
1811 to 1825, with the exception of two years when 
he was voluntarily absent, he was chosen to preside 
over their deliberations almost without opposition. 
The period of his Speakership will always be re- 
garded as an epoch in the history of our Federal 
legislature. Perhaps the most remarkable charac- 
teristic of his presidency over the House was his 
perfect — his unimpeachable impartiality. Both foes 
and friends bore testimony to this trait without a 
dissenting voice. Strong as were his party feelings, 
they never could induce him, even in the very tempest 
and whirlwind of debate, to treat an opponent with 
unfairness or undue neglect. His decisions were al- 
ways prompt, yet never so hasty as to be reversed by 
the House. Notwithstanding the many momentous 
and agitating questions which were discussed while 
he occupied the chair, he was never known to lose 
his self-possession, or to fail in preserving the dignity 
of his position. 



HENRY CLAY 333 

During" the long period of his service (some twelve 
or thirteen years) in the chair, such was the confi- 
dence reposed in his impartiality and the rectitude of 
his judgment, that appeals were rarely taken from 
his decision — during the last years of his incum- 
bency, scarcely one. 

It has been seen that Mr. Clay's presiding in the 
chair did not prevent his taking an active and lead- 
ing part in all the great measures that came before 
the House in committee of the whole. His spirits 
were always buoyant, and his manner in debate gen- 
erally animated, and sometimes vehement. But he 
never carried from the floor to the chair the excited 
feelings arising in debate. 

Uniformly cheerful when on the floor, he some- 
times indulged in repartee. The late General Alex- 
ander Smyth of Virginia, a man of ability and re- 
search, was an excessively tedious speaker, worrying 
the House and prolonging his speeches by numerous 
quotations. On one of these occasions, when he had 
been more than ordinarily tiresome, while hunting 
up an authorit}^ he observed to Mr. Clay, who was 
sitting near him, '^ You, sir, speak for the present 
generation ; but I speak for posterity." — '' Yes," said 
Air. Clay, " and you seem resolved to speak until the 
arrival of your audience! " 



CHAPTER IX 

Mr. Clay as Secretary of State. 

Rarely has an administration been subjected to 
an opposition so unrelenting, so vindictive, and so 
determined as that which assailed the presidency of 
John Quincy Adams. The motives of that opposi- 
tion appear to have been purely selfish and merce- 
nary ; for the policy of ]\Ir. Adams resembled that of 
his predecessor, whose Secretary of State he had 
been, and it was little calculated to call down a viru- 
lent hostility. In his views of the powers of the Gen- 
eral Government, he was more liberal than ]\Ir. Mon- 
roe. He was friendly to the American system of in- 
ternal improvement and protection, which had been 
so ably vindicated by Mr. Clay ; and all his measures 
were conceived in a truly generous, republican, and 
patriotic spirit. 

In the distribution of his official patronage, Mr. 
Adams appears to have been actuated by the purest 
and most honorable motives. Not a single removal 
from office, on political grounds, was made by his 
authority : and in no one instance does he seem to 
have been impelled by considerations of self-interest, 
or with a view to ultimate personal advantage. 

The circumstances under which he came into 
office, however, were a continual source of uneasiness 
to the friends of Jackson and Crawford ; and his ad- 

334 



HENRY CLAY 335 

ministration, able and honorable to the country as it 
was, was constantly assailed. 

The health of Mr. Clay, during the whole period of 
his residence at Washington, as Secretary of State, 
was exceedingly unfavorable — so much so, that at 
one time he had fully determined to resign the office. 
He was persuaded, however, to remain; and, not- 
withstanding the depressing influence upon mental 
and physical exertion of bodily infirmity, he dis- 
charged the complicated and laborious duties of the 
Secretaryship with a fidelity and efficiency that have 
never been surpassed. 

One of the ablest State papers in the diplomatic 
annals of the United States, is the letter of instruc- 
tions of Mr. Clay to the delegation to Panama. A 
congress was proposed to be held at Panama or 
Tacubaya, to be composed of delegates from the 
republics of Mexico, Colombia, and Central America, 
to deliberate on subjects of importance to all, and in 
which the welfare and interest of all might be in- 
volved. The threatening aspect of the " Holy Al- 
liance " in Europe toward the free governments of 
the New World, had induced the late President Mon- 
roe to declare that the United States would not view 
with indifference any interference on their part in 
the contest between Spain and her former colonies ; 
and the governments of the new republics were nat- 
urally led to suppose that our own was friendly to the 
objects proposed in the contemplated congress. In 
the spring of 1825, invitations were given on the part 
of Colombia, Mexico, and Central America, to the 
United States, to send commissioners to Panama. 



336 • AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

To manifest the sensibility of the United States 
to what concerned the welfare of America and to the 
friendly feelings of the Spanish- American States, the 
President determined to accept their invitations and 
to send ministers, with the consent of the Senate. 

In March, 1829, a call having been made in the 
Senate for copies of the instructions given to our 
ministers at Panama, Mr. Adams transmitted them, 
and they were soon afterward published. Few State 
papers in the archives of the Government will com- 
pare, in point of ability, with this letter of instruc- 
tions of ^Ir. Clay. The liberal principles of com- 
merce and navigation which it proposed ; the securi- 
ties for neutral and maritime rights which it sought ; 
the whole system of international and American 
policy which it aimed to establish ; and the prepara- 
tory measures w'hich it recommended for uniting the 
tzvo oceans by a canal, constitute it one of the boldest, 
most original, comprehensive, and statesmanlike 
documents on record. 

The number of treaties negotiated by Mr. Clay at 
the seat of the General Government, is greater than 
that of all which had ever been previously concluded 
there from the first adoption of the Constitution. 
His diplomatic experience — his attractive manners 
— his facile and unceremonious mode of transacting 
business, rendered him a favorite with the foreign 
ministers at Washington, and enabled him to pro- 
cure from them terms the most advantageous to the 
country. 

His letters to Mr. Gallatin, our minister at Lon- 
don, in relation to the trade between the United 



HENRY CLAY 337 

States and the British colonies, and on the navigation 
of the St. Lawrence, and to our charge at London, 
relative to the northeastern boundary, exhibit much 
research, and a sagacious, enlightened, and truly 
American spirit. Never was the diplomacy of the 
country so efficiently and creditably conducted, as 
when under the charge of Henry Clay. 

It has been justly said that no policy could be 
more thoroughly anti-European, and more complete- 
ly American, than that of Mr. Adams's administra- 
tion. 

But the elements of opposition, which had re- 
mained inactive during the eight years of Air. Mon- 
roe's presidency, began to form and combine against 
his successor almost before he was " warm in his 
chair." The character of these elements was some- 
what heterogeneous ; and the partisan managers were 
long puzzled to find some principles of cohesion in 
their opposition. The policy of Mr. Adams upon all 
important questions coincided with that of the ma- 
jority, and was sanctioned by the example of his 
great democratic predecessors. 

But as Mr. Adams's administration drew^ to a 
close, it began to be apparent that it was not destined 
to a second term. The strongest appeals were made 
to the sectional feelings of the W^estern States in be- 
half of the candidate of the opposition; and these 
appeals were but too successful. In the various sec- 
tions of the L'nion, opposite reasons were urged with 
effect against the administration. New York and 
Pennsylvania were operated upon by an assertion, 
industriously circulated, that General Jackson was 

A. B., VOL. IV. — 22 



338 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

the candidate of the Democracy of the country, and 
this impression contributed to create a strong party 
in the States of Maine and New Hampshire. Noth- 
ing could be more untrue than the assertion. Many 
of the leaders of the old Federal party were the most 
ardent personal opponents of Mr. Adams, and be- 
came the most effective enemies of his administra- 
tion. These men might afterward be heard claiming 
to be the orthodox Democratic party, and denounc- 
ing Henry Clay — the early opponent of the alien and 
sedition laws — the friend and supporter of Jeffer- 
son's administration — the main pillar of Madison's 
— and the most active originator and advocate of the 
last war — as a Federalist! 

The truth is that it has fared with the principles of 
Federalism as with its men. In the time of Mr. 
Monroe there was a general blending of parties. A 
new and distinct formation, on grounds at first pure- 
ly personal, was made during the administration of 
General Jackson. As soon as there was a division 
on principles, the worst part of the old Federalists — 
went over to General Jackson, and carried with them 
a spirit of ^ ultraism, ay, and of ultra-Federalism, 
which was developed in the protest, and proclama- 
tion, and many of the leading measures of his admin- 
istration. The more moderate, prudent, and patriot- 
ic, joined with the Democratic party, and formed the 
great Whig party of the country. The ultras of the 
old party coalesced, and the combination was nat- 
urally Tory. 

Upon the assembling of the Twentieth Congress, 
it was ascertained, by the election of the Speaker, 



HENRY CLAY 339 

that a majority of the House was opposed to the ad- 
ministration; and this victory was soon followed by 
such an accession from those who w^ere uncoinmitted 
in the Senate as to give a majority to the same party 
in that body. Thenceforward the administration 
was not allowed, of course, a fair trial ; and every 
question was discussed with a view to political effect. 

At length, in the autumn of 1828, the presidential 
election took place, and resulted in the choice of An- 
drew Jackson, by one hundred and seventy-eight 
votes in the primary electoral colleges, given by six- 
teen States, including Virginia and Georgia, which, 
in the previous election, had cast their votes for 
Mr. Crawford. Mr. Calhoun was chosen Vice-Presi- 
dent. Thus ended the administration of John 
Quincy Adams, during which our domestic and 
foreign affairs were never more ably and prosper- 
ously conducted. 

In March, 1829, General Jackson entered upon the 
discharge of his official duties as President. On the 
14th of the same month, Mr. Clay left Washington 
for his residence in Kentucky. Before quitting that 
city, some of the principal residents, as a parting 
tribute of respect, gave him a public dinner. 



CHAPTER X 

Return to Kentucky. — Again United States Senator. 

On his way to Kentucky, Mr. Clay received con- 
tinual testimonials of the attachment and esteem of 
the people. He was invited to innumerable public 
dinners, but was able to appear only at a few. 

During the summer and autumn of 1829, Mr. 
Clay visited several parts of the State of his adop- 
tion, and everywhere he was hailed as a friend and 
public benefactor. 

In January, 1830, he made a visit to one of his 
married daughters at New Orleans. Although ap- 
pearing there as a private citizen, he found it im- 
possible to escape those attentions which the public 
gratitude suggested. He was daily visited by 
crowds of persons, including members of the legis- 
lature and judges of the different courts. The ship- 
masters, who were in port, waited in a body upon 
him as the champion of free trade and sailors' rights. 
Declining an invitation to a public dinner, he left 
New Orleans for Natchez, on his way home, the 9th 
of March. 

At Natchez, persons from all parts of Mississippi 
were waiting to meet him. Soon after his arrival, 
he accepted a pressing invitation to a public dinner. 

340 



HENRY CLAY 34I 

In the course of his remarks, having occasion to 
alhtde to the hattle of New Orleans, he paid a gen- 
erous trihute to General Jackson. Henry Clay never 
was the man to detract from the merits of even his 
most unrelenting opponents. 

On the 27th of March, Mr. Clay reached Lexing- 
ton, having declined numerous invitations to public 
dinners on his route. 

In the autumn of 1831, Mr. Clay was elected to 
the Senate of the United States by the legislature 
of Kentucky. At the first session of the Twenty- 
second Congress, he presented his credentials, and 
took his seat once more. 

Contemporaneous with his reappearance in the 
Senate, was the meeting of the National Republican 
Convention, wdiich assembled at Baltimore, on the 
1 2th of December, 1831, and unanimously nomi- 
nated Henry Clay to the office of President of the 
United States, and John Sergeant to that of Vice- 
President. 

The subject of the tariff began to be vehemently 
agitated in Congress early in the session of 183 1- 
32. The discontent of the South was assuming an 
alarming aspect ; and the system of protection, which 
Mr. Clay had labored so long and incessantly to es- 
tablish, was threatened with material qualifications, 
if not a complete overthrow. In that conciliatory 
spirit, wdiich he had manifested on many critical 
occasions, he now approached this exciting topic. 
On the ninth of January, 1832, he introduced a reso- 
lution, providing that the existing duties upon arti- 
cles imported from foreign countries, and not com- 



342 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

ing into competition with similar articles made or 
produced within the United States, ought to be 
forthwith abolished, except the duties upon wines or 
silks, and that they ought to be reduced ; and that the 
Committee on Finance be instructed to report a bill 
accordingly. This resolution he sustained in an ad- 
mirable speech of about two hours duration, in 
which he spoke warmly in favor of the maintenance 
of the protective policy and that of internal im- 
provement. 

Mr. Hayne followed in reply; and on the second 
of February, the subject being still under discussion 
before the Senate, Air. Clay commenced his ever- 
memorable speech in defence of the American sys- 
tem against the British colonial system. It was con- 
tinued on the next day, and finally completed on the 
sixth of the same month. Such a chain of irrefra- 
gable argument as it presents, with facts the most 
cogent and appropriate, has rarely been forged by 
human ingenuity. It will be referred to by future 
statesmen as their political text-book, when the pro- 
tective policy is called in question. 

On the 13th of March, Mr. Dickerson, from the 
Committee on Manufactures, reported, in conformity 
with Mr. Clay's resolution, a bill for repealing the 
duties upon certain specified articles of import. The 
bill was opposed at the threshold because it did not 
embrace the whole subject of the tariff; because it 
made no reduction of duties upon protected articles. 
An animated debate ensued, and the bill was laid 
upon the table. After undergoing numerous modi- 
fications in both houses, it was finally passed by Con- 



HENRY CLAY 343 

gress in July, 1832. By this new law, the princi- 
ples for which Mr. Clay and the rest of the friends 
of domestic industry had contended, were preserved. 
The revenue was greatly reduced, but the protective 
system remained unimpaired. 



CHAPTER XI 

Nullification. — The Tariff Compromise. — Public Lands. 

The amended tariff was received with little favor 
by the South. Nullification grew daily bolder in its 
denunciation and menaces ; and the Union seemed 
to be greatly in danger. On the 24th of November, 
1832, the South Carolina convention passed their 
ordinance, declaring the revenue laws of the United 
States null and void ; and soon afterward the legis- 
lature of the State met, ratified the proceedings of 
the convention, and passed laws for the organization 
of the militia and the purchase of munitions and 
ordnance. 

In the midst of these troubles, the presidential 
contest took place, and resulted in the reelection of 
General Jackson over the opposing candidates, 
Henry Clay, John Floyd of Virginia, and William 
Wirt.' 

On the loth of December, 1832, soon after the 
meeting of Congress, President Jackson issued his 
proclamation, announcing his determination to en- 
force the revenue laws, and exhorting the citizens 
of South Carolina to pause in their disorganizing 
career. This remonstrance produced little effect. 
It was followed, on the 20th of the same month, 
by a counter-proclamation from Governor Hayne, 

344 



HENRY CLAY 345 

of South Carolina, warning- the citizens against the 
attempt of the President to seduce them from their 
allegiance, and exhorting them, in disregard of his 
threats, to be prepared to sustain the State against 
the arbitrary measures of the Federal Executive. 

The protective system was at this moment in im- 
minent hazard of being destroyed. General Jack- 
son's administration was always inimical to that 
policy, originated and principally supported as it 
had been by a hated rival. The tariff became the 
great question of the session. It was referred to 
the Committee of Ways and Means, where it was 
remodelled; and on the 27th of December a bill 
was reported, which was understood to embody the 
views of the administration. It proposed a diminu- 
tion of the duties on all the protected articles, to 
take effect immediately, and a further diminution 
on the 2d of March, 1834. The subject was dis- 
cussed from the 8th to the i6th of January, 1833, 
when a message was received from the President, 
communicating the South Carolina ordinance and 
nullifying lav/s, together with his own views as to 
what should be done under the existing state of af- 
fairs. On the twenty-first of the same month, the 
judiciary committee of the Senate reported a bill to 
enforce the collection of the revenue, where any 
obstructions were offered to the officers employed 
in that duty. 

The aspect of affairs was now alarming in the 
extreme. The administration party in the House 
had shown itself utterly incapable of devising a 
tariff likely to be accepted by a majority of that 



346 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

body. The session was rapidly drawing to a close. 
South Carolina had deferred the period of its colli- 
sion with the General Government in the hope that 
some measure would be adopted by Congress. This 
hope seemed to be daily growing fainter. Should 
the enforcing bill not be carried into effect against 
the nullifiers, the tariff was still menaced by the 
Federal administration, hostile to the protective 
system. 

At this juncture, Henry Clay, deeply impressed 
with the importance of the crisis, stepped forward 
to reconcile conflicting interests and to avert the dire 
consequences which would result from the further 
delay of an adjustment. On the eleventh of Febru- 
ary he introduced his celebrated Compromise Bill, 
providing for a general reduction of duties until 
1842, when twenty per cent, at a home valuation 
should be the rate, " until otherwise regulated by 
law." 

Mr. Clay introduced this bill with some pertinent 
and impressive remarks, in which he deplored the 
distracted and portentous condition of the country, 
and appealed strongly to the patriotism and good 
sense of Congress to apply a remedy. The bill un- 
derwent a long and vehement discussion. 

The Southern Senators had declared that they 
would be content with whatever would satisfy the 
South Carolina Senators. Mr. Calhoun had mani- 
fested strong objections to the " home valuation." 
Mr. Clay told him that he must concur in it, or the 
measure would be defeated. Mr. Calhoun appeared 
very reluctant to do so ; and Mr. Clay went to the 



HENRY CLAY 347 

Senate on the day when the bill was to be decided, 
uncertain as to what its fate would be. When the 
bill was taken up. Mr. Calhoun rose in his place and 
agreed to the home valuation, evidently, however, 
with reluctance. 

Two great leading motives operated with Mr. 
Clay in bringing forward and supporting his meas- 
ure of compromise. The first was, that he believed 
the whole protective policy to be in the most immi- 
nent peril from the influence of General Jackson and 
the dominion of his party. 

Another leading motive with Mr. Clay, in pro- 
posing the compromise, was to restore harmony, and 
preserve the Union from danger; to arrest a civil 
zvar.zvhich, beginning zvith South Carolina Jie feared 
might spread throughout all the Southern States. 

It may be added that a third and powerful motive, 
which he felt intensely, although he did not always 
avow it, was an invincible repugnance to placing 
under the command of General Jackson such a vast 
military pozver as might be necessary to enforce the 
lazvs and put dozvn any resistance to them in South 
Carolina, and zvhich might extend he knezv not 
zvhere. He could not think, without the most 
serious apprehensions, of intrusting a man of his 
vehement passions with such an immense power. 

The compromise bill passed the House February 
26, 1833, by a vote of 120 to 84. It passed the Sen- 
ate, the ensuing ist of March, by a vote of 29 to 16 
— Mr. Webster voting against it. Mr. Clay was now 
once more hailed as the preserver of the Republic — 
as the great pacificator. The dark, portentous cloud 



34S AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

big with civil discord and disunion, which had been 
hanging over the country, rolled away and was scat- 
tered. The South and the North were reconciled ; 
and confidence and prosperity were restored. Is not 
such a civic triumph worth all the paeans ever 
shouted in the ears of a military conqueror? It 
placed Mr. Clay in a commanding and elevated posi- 
tion — and drew upon him the eyes of the whole 
nation, as a liberal, sound, and true-hearted states- 
man, in whose hands the interests of all sections 
would be safe. 

In the autumn of 1833, Mr. Clay, accompanied 
by his wife, fulfilled a design which he had long con- 
templated, of visiting the eastern cities. His journey 
was one continued ovation. 

The multitudes of citizens who met, followed, and 
waited upon him at every point, in rapid succession, 
indicated how large a space he occupied in the public 
heart. As he said in one of the numerous speeches 
which he was called upon to make, during his tour, 
"he had been taken into custody, made captive of, 
but placed withal in such delightful bondage, that he 
could find no streno-th and no desire to break awav 
from it." 

Mr. Clay's course in regard to the public lands 
presents a striking illustration of his patriotic dis- 
interestedness, and self-sacrificing devotion to the 
cause of justice. The characteristic traits which he 
displayed upon this question, remind us of an anec- 
dote of him, related, a few years since, by that emi- 
nent statesman and high-minded Whig, William C. 
Preston, in a speech at Philadelphia. "On one occa- 



HENRY CLAY 349 

sion," said Mr. P., 'lie did me the honor to send for 
and consult with me. It was in reference to a step* 
he was about to take, and which will, perliaps, come 
to vour minds without more direct allusions. After 
stating what he proposed, I suggested whether there 
would not be danger in it — whether such a course 
would not injure his own prospects as well as those 
of the Whig party in general? His reply was — ' I 
did not send for you to ask what might be the effects 
of the proposed movement on my prospects, but 
whether it is right. I would rather be right 

THAN BE PRESIDENT.' " 

On March 22, 1832, Mr. Bibb, of Kentucky moved 
an inquiry into the expediency of reducing the price 
of the public lands. Mr. Robinson of Illinois, moved 
a further inquiry into the expediency of transferring 
the public territory to the States within which it lies, 
upon reasonable terms. With the view of embar- 
rassing Mr. Clay, these topics were inappropriately 
referred, by the administration party, to the Com- 
mittee on Manufactures, of which he was a member. 
It was supposed by his enemies, that he would make 
a "bid for the presidency," by favoring the interested 
vStates at the expense of justice and sound policy. 
In about three weeks after the matter was referred 
to the committee, he presented to Congress a most 
luminous, able, and conclusive report, and in the bill 
appended to it, arranged the details of a wise and 
equitable plan, which no subsequent legislation was 
able to improve. 

Mr. Clay regarded the national domain in the light 
* His speech on slavery and the reception of abolition petitions. 



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CHAPTER XII 

The Bank Struggle. 

For twelve years, the country was kept in a fever 
of perpetual excitement, or in a state of alternate 
paralysis and convulsion, by the agitation of the cur- 
rency question. General Jackson found us in 1829 
in a condition of general prosperity. The govern- 
ment was administered with republican economy. 
The legislature, the judiciary, and the executive, 
every one wielding its constitutional powers, moved 
on harmoniously in their respective spheres ; and the 
result was a system that secured the happiness of the 
people and challenged the admiration of the civilized 
world. Commerce, agriculture, manufactures, and 
the mechanic arts, flourished; lending mutual aid, 
and enjoying a common prosperity, fostered by the 
government, and diffusing blessings among the com- 
munity. The banking system was sound throughout 
the States. Our currency was uniform in value, and 
the local banks were compelled to restrict their issues 
to their ability of redemption in specie. ^ 

In 1830, General Jackson commenced his "humble 
efforts" for improving our condition. He advised, 
in his message of that year, the establishment of a 
treasury-bank, wnth the view, among other things, of 
"strengthening the States," by leaving in their hands 
"the means of furnishing the local paper currency 

352 



HENRY CLAY 353 

through their own banks." Congress passed a bill 
for the recharter of the United States Bank. This 
bill was peremptorily vetoed by General Jackson, 
who condemned it as premature, and modestly re- 
marked in regard to a bank, '' Had the Executive 
been called upon to furnish the project of such an 
institution as would be constitutional, the duty would 
have been cheerfully performed." 

Mr. Clay was one of the foremost in denouncing 
the extraordinary doctrines of this veto message. 
On the 1 2th of July, 1832, he addressed the Senate 
upon the subject. We have already given an ex- 
position of his views upon the question of a bank. 
They are too well-known to the country to require 
reiteration in this place. They have been frankly 
avowed on all fitting occasions. Touching the veto 
power, that monarchical feature in our constitution, 
his opinions were such as might have been expected 
from the leader of the Democratic party of 18 15. He 
considered it irreconcilable with the genius of a 
representative government and cited the constitution 
of Kentucky, by which, if after the rejection of a bill 
by the Governor, it shall be passed by a majority of 
all the members elected to both houses, it becomes a 
law notwithstanding the Governor's objection. 

During the session of 1832-33, General Jackson 
declared that the public deposits were not safe in the 
vaults of the United States Bank, and called upon 
Congress to look into the subject, and to augment 
v/hat he then considered the ''limited powers" of the 
Secretary of the Treasury over the public money. 
Congress made the desired investigation and the 

A. B., VOL. VI. — 23 



354 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

House of Representatives, by a vote of 109 to 46, 
declared the deposits to be perfectly safe. Resolved 
on gratifying his feelings of personal animosity 
toward the friends of the bank. General Jackson did 
not allow his explicit declaration on the part of the 
immediate agents of the people to shake his despotic 
purpose. During the autumn of 1833, he resolved 
upon that most arbitrary of arbitrary measures, the 
removal of the deposits. The cabinet council to 
whom he originally proposed this measure, are said 
to have disapproved of it in the most decided terms. 
Mr. McLane, the Secretary of the Treasury, refused 
to lend it his assistance. He was accordingly trans- 
lated to the office of Secretary of State, and William 
J. Duane, of Philadelphia, took his place at the head 
of the Treasury Department. On the 20th of Sep- 
tember, 1833, it was authoritatively announced to 
the public that the deposits would be removed. The 
next day, Mr. Duane made known to the President 
his resolution neither voluntarily to withdraw from 
his post, nor to be made the instrument of illegally 
removing the public treasures. The consequence 
was, the rude dismission of the independent Secre- 
tary from office, on the 23d of September. Mr. 
Taney, who had sustained the views of the President, 
was made his successor : and the people's money was 
removed from the depository where the law had 
placed it, and scattered among irresponsible State in- 
stitutions under the control of greedy partisans. 

The congressional session of 1833-34 was one of 
extraordinary interest, in consequence of the discus- 
sion of this high-handed measure. 



HENRY CLAY 355 

On the 26th of December, 1833, Mr. Clay laid the 
following resolutions before the Senate : 

'' I. Resolved, That, by dismissing the late Secretary of the 
Treasury, because he would not, contrary to his sense of his 
own duty, remove the money of the United States in deposit 
with the Bank of the United States and branches, in conform- 
ity with the president's opinion, and by appointing his suc- 
cessor to effect such removal, which has been done, the presi- 
dent has assumed the exercise of a power over the treasury of 
the United States not granted by the Constitution and laws, 
and dangerous to the liberties of the people. 

" 2. Resolved, That the reasons assigned by the Secretary of 
the Treasury for the removal of the money of the United 
States from the United States bank and its branches, com- 
municated to Congress on the third day of December, 1833, 
are unsatisfactory and insufficient." 

Mr, Clay's speech in support of the resolutions, 
was delivered partly on the 26th, and partly on the 
30th of December ; and it is one of the most masterly 
efforts of eloquence ever heard within the walls of 
the Capitol? 

The resolution having been referred to the Com- 
mittee on Finance, at the head of which was Mr. 
Webster, was reported with a recommendation that 
it be adopted. The question upon the resolution was 
not taken till the 28th of March, when it was passed 
by the Senate, 28 to 18. At the instance of some of 
his friends, Mr. Clay then modified his other resolu- 
tion, so as to read as follows : — 

" Resolved, That the president in the late executive pro- 
ceedings in relation to the public revenue, has assumed upon 
himself authority and power not conferred by the Constitution 
and laws, but in derogation of both." 



356 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

The resolution was adopted. 

The passage of Mr. Clay's resolution drew forth 
from the President the celebrated protest, which was 
communicated to the Senate, the 17th of April, 1833. 
This document was of a most novel and unprece- 
dented character, and gave rise to debates, which will 
always be memorable in our legislative annals. The 
assumptions of the President were truly of a kind to 
excite alarm among the friends of our repu])lican 
system. In this extraordinary paper he maintains, 
that he is responsible for the acts of every executive 
officer, and that all the powers given by law are 
vested in him as the head and fountain of all. He 
alludes to the Secretary of the Treasury as his secre- 
tary, and says that Congress cannot take from the 
Executive the control of the public money. His doc- 
trine is, that the President sliould, under his oath of 
office, sustain the Constitution as he understands it; 
not as the judiciary may expound, or Congress de- 
clare it. From these principles he infers that all sub- 
ordinate officers are merely the executors of his 
supreme will, and that he has the right to discharge 
them whenever he may please. 

These monstrous and despotic assumptions, trans- 
cending as they do the prerogatives claimed by most 
of the monarchs of Europe afforded a theme for 
eloquent discussion, which was not neglected by the 
opposition, who then constituted the majority in the 
Senate. Mr. Poindexter, of Mississippi, protested 
against the reception of such a paper from the Presi- 
dent; and moved that it h^ not received. 

On the 2 1st of April another message was received 



HENRY CLAY 357 

from the President, being a sort of codicil to the pro- 
test, in which he undertook to explain certain pas- 
sages, which he feared had been misapprehended. 
Mr. Poindexter withdrew his original motion, and 
substituted four resolutions in which it was em- 
bodied. These resolutions were modified by Mr. 
Clay, and an amendment suggested by Mr. Calhoun 
was adopted. Messrs. Clayton, Webster, Preston, 
Ewing, Mangum, and others, addressed the Senate 
eloquently on various occasions upon the subject of 
the protest and, on the 30th of April, Mr. Clay, the 
resolution of Mr. Poindexter still pending, made his 
well-known speech. 

The resolutions of Mr. Poindexter passed the Sen- 
ate by a vote of 27 to 16 on the 7th of May. They 
exclude the protest from the journals, and declare 
that the President of the United States has no right 
to send a protest to the Senate against any of its 
proceedings. 

Immediately after the withdrawal of the public 
monev from the United States Bank, and before the 
"pet banks," to which the treasure had been trans- 
ferred, had created an unhealthy plethora in the cur- 
rency by their consequent expansions, the distress 
among the people began to manifest itself in numer- 
ous memorials to Congress, protesting against the 
President's financial experiments, and calling for re- 
lief. Many of these memorials were communicated 
to the Senate through Mr. Clay, and he generally 
accompanied their presentation with a brief but per- 
tinent speech. 

This session, generally known as the ''panic ses- 



358 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

sion," was one of the most remarkable that have ever 
occurred in the progress of our Government. Never 
was there collected in the Senate a greater amount 
of eminent ability. For weeks together the Whigs 
poured forth a torrent of eloquent denunciations, in 
every form, against that high-handed measure, the 
removal of the deposits. This was most generally 
done on the occasion of presenting petitions or me- 
morials from the people against it. Go into the Sen- 
ate-Chamber any morning during this interesting 
period, and you would find some Whig on his feet, 
expatiating on the pernicious consequences of that 
most disastrous proceeding. It was then that they 
predicted the evil effects of it, since so fatally and 
exactly realized. J\lr. Clay was among the most 
active and eloquent of these distinguished champions 
of the people. 



CHAPTER XIII 

Difficulty with France. — Indian Wrongs, 

The most important question which came before 
Congress at its second session, in 1834-35, was that 
of our relations with France. The claims of our 
citizens upon that government for aggressions upon 
our commerce between the years 1800 and 181 7, had 
been repeatedly admitted; but no decided steps 
toward a settlement had been taken until the 4th of 
July, 1 83 1, when a treaty was ratified, by which it 
was agreed, on the part of the French, that the sum 
of twenty-five millions of francs should be paid to 
the United States as an indemnity. By the terms 
of the treaty, the first instalment was to be paid at 
the expiration of one year after the exchange of the 
ratifications. 

The French Government having failed in the 
performance of this stipulation — the draft of the 
United States for the first instalment having been 
dishonored by the Minister of Finance — President 
Jackson, in his message of December, 1834, to Con- 
gress, recommended that, in case provision should 
not be made for the payment of the debt at the ap- 
proaching session of the French chambers, a law 
should be passed authorizing reprisals upon French 
property. This was a step not to be precipitately 

359 



360 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

taken ; and, to insure its patriotic, dispassionate, and 
statesmanlike consideration, the Senate placed Mr. 
Clay at the head of the Committee on Foreign Rela- 
tions, to which committee that part of the President's 
message relating to our affairs with France was 
referred. 

On the 6th of January, 1835, Mr. Clay made his 
celebrated report to the Senate. It was read by him 
from his seat, its reading occupying an hour and a 
half; the Senate-Chamber being thronged during its 
delivery by members of the House, and the galleries 
filled to overflowing. The ability displayed in this 
extraordinary document, the firmness and modera- 
tion of its tone, the perspicuous arrangements of 
facts which it presents, the lucidity and strength of 
its style, and the inevitable weight of its conclusions, 
called forth the admiration and concurrence of all 
parties. It would seem to have been, under Provi- 
dence, the means of averting a war with France. 
In the preparation of it. Air. Clay had a difficult and 
delicate task to perform; and it was accomplished 
with great ingenuity and success. " Not a word that 
could lower the national tone and spirit was indulged 
in. He eloquently maintained that the right lay on 
our side, but admitted that the French king had not 
been so far in the wrong that all hopes of the execu- 
tion of the treaty were extinct, nor did he consider 
that hostile measures were yet justifiable. This tem- 
perate, judicious, firm, and statesmanlike language, 
while it removed all cause of offence on the part of 
the French, imparted new renown to our own diplo- 
macy. While it was all that the most chivalrous 



HENRY CLAY 36 1 

champions of their country's honor could ask, it 
breathed a spirit which called forth the full approba- 
tion of the friends of peace. 

The Senate ordered twenty thousand copies of this 
admirable report to be printed, and it was soon scat- 
tered to the remotest corners of the Union. The 
rates of insurance were at once diminished, com- 
merce spread her white wings to the gale, and swept 
the ocean once more unchecked by the liabilities of a 
hostile encounter. The depression in business pro- 
duced by the President's belligerent recommendation 
was at once removed. 

On the 14th of January, Mr. Clay, pursuant to 
previous notice, called for the consideration of the 
report of the Committee on Foreign Relations, and 
its accompanying resolution. He spoke for nearly 
an hour, and his remarks were in the same moderate, 
magnanimous and truly American strain, which 
characterized his report. 

The following resolution w^as at length unani- 
mously passed by the Senate: 

''Resolved, That it is inexpedient at present to adopt any- 
legislative measure in regard to the state of affairs between 
the United States and France."' 

The unanimous passage of this resolution was a 
result as gratifying as it was unexpected ; and its 
effect upon the French chambers, in neutralizing the 
harsh language of the President, and hastening the 
execution of the treaty, was most auspicious. 

On the 4th of February, 1835, Mr. Clay made a 
brilliant and impressive speech in the Senate, upon 



362 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

the subject oi a memorial, which he presented from 
certain Indians of the Cherokee tribe. The me- 
morial set forth, in eloquent and becoming terms, the 
condition of the tribe, their grievances and their 
wants. It seemed that of the remnant of this people 
then in Georgia, one portion were desirous of being 
aided to remove beyond the Mississippi, and the 
other wished to remain where they were, and to be 
removed from the rigid restrictions which the State 
of Georgia had imposed upon them. In his remarks, 
Mr. Clay eloquently alluded to the solemn treaties by 
which the possession of their lands had been secured 
to these Indians by our Government. The faith of 
the United States had been pledged that they should 
continue unmolested in the enjoyment of their hunt- 
ing-grounds. In defiance of these sacred stipula- 
tions, Georgia had claimed jurisdiction over the tribe 
— had parcelled out their lands, and disposed of 
them by lottery — degraded the Cherokees to the con- 
dition of serfs — denied them all the privileges of 
freedom, and rendered their condition infinitely 
worse than that of the African slave. It was the in- 
terest, as well as the pride of the master, to provide 
for the health and comfort of his slave ; but what 
human being was there to care for these unfortunate 
Indians? 

To General Jackson's administration, we are in- 
debted for the system which makes the offices of the 
Federal Government the rewards of political par- 
tisanship, and proscribes all incumbents who may en- 
tertain opinions at variance with those of the Execu- 
tive. The patronage of the press, the patronage of 



HENRY CLAY 363 

the post office, the patronage of the custom house, 
with its salaries, commissions, and fees — the patron- 
age of the land office, with its opportunities of suc- 
cessful speculation — these formed the stronghold 
and citadel of corrupt power. On the eighteenth of 
February, 1835, Mr. Clay addressed the Senate in 
support of the bill for the abatement of Executive 
patronage. His speech contains a striking exposi- 
tion of the evils resulting from the selfish and des- 
potic exercise, on the part of the Chief Magistrate, 
of the appointing and removing power, and is per- 
vaded by that truly democratic spirit which has 
characterized all the public acts of the author. 



CHAPTER XIV 

Public Lands. — Specie Circular. — Expunging Resolve. 

Our affairs with France occupied a considerable 
portion of President Jackson's message to the Twen- 
ty-fourth Congress at its first session. Mr. Clay 
was again replaced at the head of the Committee on 
Foreign Relations. 

On the 8th of February, 1836, a message from the 
President was received, announcing that the govern- 
ment of Great Britain had offered its mediation for 
the adjustment of the dispute between the United 
States and France. The message was referred to the 
Committee on Foreign Affairs; and on the 22d of 
February, a correspondence between the Secretary 
of State and Air. Bankhead, on the subject of British 
mediation, was submitted. This gave occasion for 
some remarks from Air. Clay, who said that he could 
not withhold the expression of his congratulation to 
the Senate, for the agency it had in producing the 
happy termination of our difficulties with France. 
If the Senate had not, by its unanimous vote of last 
September, declared that it was inexpedient to adopt 
any legislative action upon the subject of our rela- 
tions with France if it had yielded to the recommen- 
dations of the Executive in ordering reprisals 
against that power, it could not be doubted but that 

364 



HENRY CLAY 365 

war would have existed at that moment in its most 
serious state. 

Mr. Clay renewed his exertions in behalf of his 
land bill during this session. The bill, essen- 
tially the same as that vetoed by General Jackson, 
passed the Senate the 4th of May, 1836, by a vote of 
twenty-five to twenty, and was sent to the House. 
But the influence of the Executive was too potent 
here yet to admit of the passage of a measure which, 
though approved by the majority, was opposed by 
the President because of its having originated with 
Mr. Clav. 

The question of the right of petition came before 
the Senate early in the session. On the nth of 
January, Mr. Buchanan presented a memorial from 
a religious society of Friends in Pennsylvania, re- 
questing Congress to abolish slavery and the slave- 
trade in the District of Columbia. He moved that 
the memorial should be read, and the prayer of the 
memorialists be rejected. Mr. Calhoun demanded 
that the question should be first taken whether the 
petition be received or not ; and a debate, which was 
prolonged at various intervals till the 9th of March, 
sprang up on this preliminary question. Before the 
question was taken, Mr. Clay briefly explained his 
views. On the subject of the right of Congress to 
abolish slavery in the District he was inclined to 
think, and candor required the avowal, that the right 
did exist; though he should take a future opportu- 
nity of expressing his views in opposition to the ex- 
pediency of the exercise of that power. He expressed 
his disapprobation of the motion to receive and im- 



3^^ AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

mediately reject, made by the Senator from Pennsyl- 
vania (Mr. Buchanan). He thought that the right 
of petition required of the servants of the people to 
examine, deliberate, and decide, either to grant or re- 
fuse the prayer of a petition, giving the reasons for 
such decision; and that such was the best mode of 
putting an end to the agitation of the public on the 
subject. 

The question "Shall the petition be received?" 
being taken, was decided in the affirmative. 
. A report from the Secretary of the Treasury, 
showing the condition of the deposit banks, came be- 
fore the Senate for consideration, the 17th of March, 
1836. Mr. Clay forcibly depicted, on this occasion, 
the total insecurity of the vast pul^lic treasure in the 
keeping of these banks. What was then prophecy 
became history soon afterward. ''Suppose," said he, 
"a great deficiency of Southern crops, or any other 
crisis creating a necessity for the exportation of 
specie to Europe, instead of the ordinary shipments. 
These banks zi'oiild be compelled to call in their 
issues. This zvonld compel other banks to call in, in 
like manner, and a panic and general zvant of confi- 
dence zvoitld ensue. Then what would become of 
the public money?" It is unnecessary to point to 
the fulfilment of these predictions. Soon after the 
deposits were removed to the pet banks, they became 
the basis of vast land speculations, into which all 
who could obtain a share of the government money, 
plunged at once heels over head ; postmasters, cus- 
tom-house officers, navy agents, pet-bank directors, 
cashiers and presidents, district attorneys, govern- 



i 



HENRY CLAY 36/ 

meat printers, Secretaries of State, Postmasters- 
General, Attorneys-General, President's secretaries, 
and all the innumerable stipendiaries of the adminis- 
tration. It was this wild speculation, fostered and 
conducted by the facilities of the deposit banks, that 
filled the Treasury with unavailable funds. The ex- 
periment terminated, as Mr. Clay prophesied it 
would terminate, in universal bankruptcy. 

Mr. Clay spoke on a variety of questions during 
the session of 1834-35 ; on the recognition of the in- 
dependence of Texas, on the motion to admit the 
Senators from Michigan on the floor, and the recog- 
nition of that clause in the constitution of Michigan, 
which he conceived to give to aliens the right to vote 
on the resolution of Mr. Calhoun to incjuire into the 
expediency of such a reduction of duties as would 
not affect the manufacturing interest ; on the fortifi- 
cation bill, etc. Congress adjourned the 4th of July, 

1836. 

So fixed was Mr. Clay's wish at this time to with- 
draw from public life, that he had at one period, in 
1836, made up his mind to resign. It is certain that 
he looked forward with confidence to declining a re- 
election. But during the winter of 1836, he was re- 
elected a Senator from Kentucky for six years from 
the ensuing 4th of March. 

The Jackson administration had now a majority 
in the Senate. That noble phalanx of Whigs, who 
had so undauntedly withstood the usurpations of the 
Executive, could now only operate as a minority. 
One of the first acts of Mr. Clay, was to reintroduce 
his land bill, which, however, after much debating, 
made no progress. 



368 American biography 

On the 25th of February, the bill from the Com- 
mittee on Finance, to alter and amend the several 
acts imposing duties on imports, being before the 
Senate, Mr. Clay spoke against the measure at some 
length. His principal objection arose from what he 
conceived to be the interference of some of the pro- 
visions of the bill with the compromise act of 1833. 

He drew a striking parallel between the com- 
promise act of 1833 as to the protective system, and 
that other compromise act which settled the much- 
agitated Missouri question, and by which the latitude 
of 36 degrees 30 minutes, was established as the ex- 
treme boundary for the existence of slavery in that 
vState. Had not Congress a right to repeal that law? 
But what would those Southern gentlemen, who 
now so strenuously urged a violation of our implied 
faith in regard to the act of 1833, say if a measure 
like that should be attempted? But the bill was the 
same day passed by a vote of 27 to 18. 

On the 1 2th of January, a resolution, offered by 
Mr. Benton to expunge from the journals of the 
Senate for 1833-34, Mr. Clay's resolution censuring 
President Jackson for his unauthorized removal of 
the public deposits, came before the Senate for con- 
sideration; and on the i6th Mr. Clay discussed the 
question at considerable length. His speech was in 
a strain of mingled sarcasm and indignant invective, 
which made the subservient majority writhe under 
its scorching power. Never was a measure placed in 
a more contemptible light than was the expunging 
proposal by Mr. Clay. Those who heard him, can 
never forget the look and tone, varying from an ex- 



HENRY CLAY 369 

pression of majestic scorn to one of good-humored 
satire, with which he gave utterance to the following 
eloquent passages : — 

" What patriotic purpose is to be accomplished by this ex- 
punging resolution? Can you make that not to be which has 
been? Can you eradicate from memory and from history the 
fact that in March, 1834, a majority of the senate of the 
United States passed a resolution which excites your enmity? 
Is it your vain and wicked object to arrogate to yourself the 
power of annihilating" the past which has been denied to 
Omnipotence itself? Do you intend to thrust your hands into 
our hearts, and pluck out the deeply rooted convictions which 
are there?" 

This expunging resolution was passed by the ad- 
ministration's majority. 

A. B., VOL. VI.— 24 



CHAPTER XV 

The Snb-Treasury. — Northern Tour. 

Mr. Clay had uniformly discouraged the attempts 
of his friends to induce him to become a candidate 
for the presidency in the campaign of 1836. He 
saw the unhappy diversity in the ranks of the opposi- 
tion ; and he saw, perhaps, the inevitable ability of 
the Jackson dynasty to perpetuate itself in the eleva- 
tion of Mr. Van Buren. So potent had the Execu- 
tive become, through usurpation and the abuse of 
patronage ! 

On the 8th of February it was declared that Mar- 
tin Van Buren had been duly elected President of the 
United States, for four years from the 4th of March, 

1S37. 

It had been hoped by many that under Mr. Van 
Buren a less destructive policy would be adopted 
than that which had signalized the reign of the "hero 
of New Orleans." For the last eight years the 
country had been governed by Executive edicts. 
Congress had always been disposed to do right, but 
it had been thwarted by a domineering and usurping 
Executive. The will of the people, constitutionally 
avowed, had been constantly defeated by the im- 
perious and impetuous objections of one fallible and 
passionate old man. 

370 



HENRY CLAY 37 1 

Congress passed Mr. Clay's land bill; but the 
Executive destroyed it. 

Congress said that the deposits were safe in the 
Bank of the United States; the Executive removed 
them. 

Congress refused to issue a specie circular ; it was 
issued by the Executive. 

Congress rescinded the specie circular; and the 
Executive defeated that rescission. 

Now the doctrine of Thomas Jefferson, as adopted 
and always acted upon by Henry Clay, is, that the 

WILL OF THE MAJORITY HONESTLY EXPRESSED, 

SHALL GIVE LAW. But Cougrcss had no influence in 
the government during the pernicious ascendency 
of Jacksonism. It came together to pass appropria- 
tion bills, and register the decrees of the Chief 
Magistrate. 

The hopes that had been entertained of a reform 
under Mr. Van Buren had proved fallacious ; but his 
attempt to march in the "seven-leagued boots" of his 
predecessor speedily resulted in a ridiculous failure. 
He was tripped up at the very start. 

The disastrous condition in which the country was 
left by the "hero of New Orleans," whose "humble 
efforts" to improve the currency had resulted in the 
universal prostration of business, and a suspension 
of specie payments, called upon his successor in the 
presidential chair for some immediate measure of 
relief. On the 5th of May, 1837, Mr. Van Buren 
issued his proclamation ordering an extraordinary 
session of Congress, to commence the first Monday 
in September. In accordance with that proclama- 



372 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

tion, both houses of Congress met at the Capitol on 
the day appointed ; and tlie message recommending 
the SUB-TREASURY SYSTEM for the deposit, transfer, 
and disbursement of the pubhc revenue, was trans- 
mitted by the President. 

By this project, the Treasury of the United States, 
the treasures of the mint and its branches, cohectors. 
receivers, postmasters, and other oftice-holders, were 
commissioned to receive in specie, and keep, subject 
to the draft of the proper department, aU pubhc 
moneys, coming into their hands, instead of deposit- 
ing them, as heretofore, in banks. Among the ear- 
Hest and most prominent advocates of this measure 
was j\Ir. Calhoun, who suddenly found himself one 
of the leaders of a party, which for the last five or six 
years he had been denouncing as the most corrupt 
that had ever cursed a country. 

The bill was taken up in the Senate, the 20th of 
September ; and on the 25th, Mr. Clay spoke in oppo- 
sition to this audacious and anti-republican scheme. 
Tn this admirable speech he went at length into an 
examination of the causes that had led to the existing 
disastrous state of public affairs. To the financial 
experiments of General Jackson, he traced back un- 
erringly the consequent inflation of the currency — 
the wild speculations, which had risen to their height 
when they began to be checked by the preparations 
of the local banks, necessary to meet the deposit law 
of June, 1836 — the final suspension of specie pay- 
ments — and all the disorders in the currencv, com- 
merce, and general business of the country, that en- 
sued. He then gave his objections to the scheme be- 



HENRY CLAY 373 

fore the Senate. It proposed one currency for the 
government and another for the people. As well 
might it be attempted to make the government 
breathe a different air, be lit and warmed by a differ- 
ent sun, from the people! A hard-money govern- 
ment, and a paper-money people! A government, 
an official corps — the servants of the people — glit- 
tering in gold, and the people themselves — their mas- 
ters — buried in ruin, and surrounded by rags ! By 
the proposed substitution of an exclusive metallic 
currency for the mixed medium, all property would 
be reduced in value to one-third of its present nomi- 
nal amount ; and every debtor would in effect have 
to pay three times as much as he had contracted for. 
Then there was the security of the system — the lia- 
bility to favoritism in the fiscal negotiations — the 
fearful increase of Executive patronage — the abso- 
lute and complete union of the purse and the sword 
in the hands of the President! All these objections 
were most powerfully elucidated and enforced by 
Mr. Clay. 

He then proceeded to declare what he believed to 
be the only efficient measure for restoring a sound 
and uniform currency, which was a United States 
bank, established under such restrictions as the 
lights of recent experience might suggest. "But," 
said Mr. Clay, ''if a national bank be established, its 
stability and its utility will depend upon the general 
conviction which is felt of its necessity. And until 
such a conviction is deeply impressed upon the 
people, and clearly manifested by them, it zvould, in 
my judgment, he nnzvise even to propose a bank/' 



374 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

On the 4th of October, the sub-treasury bill, 
after undergoing various amendments, was read a 
third time and passed by the Senate by a vote of 25 
to 20. It was taken up in the House on the loth of 
October, and, on the 14th, laid on the table by a vote 
of 120 to 107. 

The defeat of this measure, in the teeth of the Ex- 
ecutive recommendation, in spite of Executive blan- 
dishment and terrors — the triumph of the majority 
without doors over the majority within, and of both 
over patronage and power — revived the dying 
hopes of the patriot, and infused new life into our 
constitution. The sceptre of misrule had crumbled. 
The dynasty, which for nearly nine years had mis- 
ruled the country, received, on that occasion, its im- 
medicable wound. 

The extra-session lasted six weeks — Congress ad- 
journing on the morning of the i6th of October. 
The measure, on which the hopes and fate of the 
administration were staked, had been defeated. 

The abolition question was agitated in the Senate 
during the last session of the Twenty-fifth Congress. 
Mr. Clay had been urged by many of his friends to 
refrain from speaking on the subject. It was repre- 
sented to him as impolitic, superfluous, and likely to 
interfere with his presidential prospects. Such argu- 
ments could have no weight with him. 

His whole course upon this perilous question, has 
been that of the honest, upright, practical, and con- 
sistent statesman, the true philanthropist, the saga- 
cious and devoted patriot. When Mr. Calhoun in- 
troduced, in the session of 1835- 36, his bill to give 



HENRY CLAY 375 

postmasters and their deputies a power of inspection 
and espionage over the mails — the bill which was 
passed to its third reading by the casting vote of 
Martin Van Buren — it met with the prompt and de- 
cided condemnation of Mr. Clay, No man has more 
vigilantly watched the sacred right of petition than 
Mr. Clay. He has condemned, on all occasions, the 
refusal of the Senate to receive petitions. His speech 
of February, 1839, yields to the abolitionist all that 
they have a right to demand, and is at the same time 
so liberal in its doctrines, as to disarm the ultraism 
of Southern hostility. Mr. Calhoun himself was 
compelled to admit his acquiescence in the soundness 
of its doctrines, and the security which their adoption 
would promise to the Union. 

In the summer of 1839, Mr. Clay visited Buffalo, 
and passing into Canada, made an excursion to Mon- 
treal and Quebec. Returning, he visited the City of 
New York. He had the previous summer been in- 
vited, at an enthusiastic meeting of his friends at 
Masonic Hall, to visit the city, but had been unable 
to comply with their invitation. His reception, at 
the period to which we now refer, was one of the 
most brilliant ever extended to a public man. 



CHAPTER XVI 

The Harrisbnrg Convention. — The Campaign. 

As the period of another presidential election drew 
near, that vast portion of the democracy of the land, 
opposed to the administration of Mr. Van Buren, 
began to turn their eyes again toward the most able, 
renowned and consistent of their leaders, Henry 
Clay, as a fitting candidate for the Chief Magistracy 
of the United States. 

The Wdiig convention for the nomination of a 
presidential candidate met at Harrisbnrg, on the 4th 
of December, 1839. A decided plurality of the dele- 
gates who attended, were in favor of the nomination 
of Mr. Clay, but a larger number were divided in 
their preferences between General \A'illiam Henry 
Harrison, who had been the candidate of the North- 
ern Whigs in the previous canvass, and General Win- 
field Scott, whose name was now for the first time 
presented. Yet all, or nearly all, fully admitted Mr. 
Clay's preeminent fitness and worth ; they opix)sed 
his nomination avowedly on the ground that he could 
not probably be elected, while another could be. 
Very many of these bitterly regretted, after the coun- 
try had fallen into the hands of John Tyler, diat they 
had not taken the risk, if risk tliere were, of nominat- 
ing the great Kentuckian. 

General Harrison was nominated for the presi- 

376 



HENRY CLAY 377 

dency, and the convention unanimously nominated 
John Tyler, of Virginia, for the vice-presidency; 
and, having taken this step, adjourned. 

A deep disappointment was felt throughout the 
Whig ranks at the failure of the convention to nomi- 
nate Mr. Clay for the presidency; but the magnan- 
imous sentiments expressed in his letter, read at the 
convention, soon began to animate his friends ; and 
they manifested their devotion to principles rather 
than to men, by rallying vigorously in support of the 
selected candidates. 

With regard to John Tyler, he was very imperfect- 
ly known out of Virginia ; and if little could be said 
in his favor, still less could be said to his prejudice. 

Mr. Clay's efforts in the Whig cause appear not to 
have been less ardent, incessant, and faithful, during 
the congressional session of 1839-40, than at any 
previous period of his career. The just expectations 
of his friends had been thwarted at Harrisburg; but 
that circumstance did not seem either to affect his 
spirits, or to damp the ardor of his opposition to that 
policy which he believed injurious to the best inter- 
ests of his country. He acquiesced promptly, hearti- 
ly, and nobly, in the nomination of General Harrison, 
and did not manifest, on any occasion, a lurking 
feeling of disappointment. 

The principal questions on which he spoke in the 
Senate during the session of 1839-40 were: on the 
abolition of slavery ; on the bankrupt bill ; the Maine 
boundary line ; Mr. Calhoun's bill to cede the public 
lands to the States in which they lie ; the navy appro- 
priation bill ; the independent treasury bill ; the 



3/8 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

branch mints; the expenditures of government; the 
Cumberland road; repeal of the salt tax; and the 
bankrupt bill. 

Mr. Clay was among the most active of those who 
took part in the campaign of 1840 which terminated 
in the complete triumph of the Whigs. On the 17th 
of August, 1840, he addressed the Harrison conven- 
tion at Nashville, Tennessee, in an interesting and 
eloquent speech. In allusion to the professions of 
the Van Buren party to be democrats par excellence, 
he very happily said : '' Of all their usurpations, I 
know of none more absurd than the usurpation of 
this name." 

*' I WAS BORN A democrat/' Said he, subsequently 
in a speech delivered in Indiana — " rocked in the 
cradle of the Revolution — and at the darkest period 
of that ever-memorable struggle for freedom. I 
recollect, in 1781 or 1782, a visit made by Tarleton's 
troops to the house of my mother, and of their run- 
ning their si<'ords into the nczv-niade graves of my 
father and graiid father, thinking they contained hid- 
den treasures. Thous^h then not more than four or 
five years of age, the circumstance of that visit is 
vividly remembered, and it will be to the last moment 
of my life. I was born a democrat — was raised and 
nurtured a republican — and shall die a republican 
in the faith and principles of my fathers." 



CHAPTER XVII 

The Twenty-seventh Congress. — Tylerism — Retirement. 

The election of General Harrison to the presi- 
dency in the autumn of 1840, by an immense ma- 
jority, was hailed by the Whigs as the triumphant 
consummation of their long and arduous twelve 
years' struggle against the destructive principles and 
measures which had prevailed during the ascendency 
of Jackson and Van Buren. A majority of the peo- 
ple had at length passed their solemn verdict against 
those measures, and in favor of the legislation for 
which Mr. Clay and the Whigs in Congress had been 
so unanimously contending. Before commencing his 
journey to the seat of government, General Harrison 
visited Mr. Clay, and personally tendered him any 
office in the President's gift. Mr. Clay respectfully 
declined all invitations of this kind and announced 
his intention of retiring from the Senate as soon as 
the objects for which he and his friends had been 
laboring so strenuously were placed in a train of 
accomplishment. 

The session of Congress preceding the new Presi- 
dent's installation, found Mr. Clay at his post, still 
prompt and active in the service of his country. On 
the land bill — the repeal of the sub-treasury — the bill 
to establish a uniform system of bankruptcy — the 

379 



SSo 



AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 



treasur\--note bill — the preemption and distribution 
project — and other imponant questions, he addressed 
the Senate witli his accustomed eloquence and en- 



er^-. 



The second session of the Twenty-sixth Confess 
terminated on the night of the 3d of March, 1S41 — 
the \'an Buren men having refused to pass a bank- 
rupt bill, and other important measures. The day 
after the adjournment. General Harrison was in- 
augurated President of the United States: and, on 
the 1 8th of March, he issued his proclamation for an 
extra session of Congress, to commence on the last 
Monday in May. Before that period arrived, and 
precisely a month after his inauguration, the vener- 
able President departed this life: and, by a provision 
of the Constitution. John Tyler of Virginia, the Vice- 
President, was invested with the authority' of Presi- 
dent of the United States. 

The extraordinary- session of Congress, convened 
by the proclamation of the lamented Harrison, took 
place at the appointed time, the last Monday in May. 
Mr. Clay at once took active and decided measures 
for the prompt despatch of the public business. The 
subjects which he proposed to the Senate, as proper 
exclusively to engage their deliberations during the 
extra session, were : — 

1st- The repeal of the sub-treasurj- law. 

2± The incorporation of a bank adapted to the wants of 
the people and the government. 

3d. The provision of an adequate revenue by the imposition 
of duties, and includinqr an authorit>' to contract a temporan.- 
loan to cover the public debt created by the last administra- 
tion- 



HEXRV CLAY 38 1 

4th. The prospective distribution of the proceeds of the 
public lands. 

5th. The passage of necessarj' appropriation bills. 

6th. Some modincations in the banking system of the Dis- 
trict of Columbia for the benefit of the people of the district 

In the formation of committees, Mr. Clav was 
placed at the head of that on finance; and, on his 
motion, a select committee on the currency, for the 
consideration of the bank question, was appointed. 
Of this committee he was made chairman. Elarlv in 
June, he presented his admirable report of a plan for 
a national bank; and, after a thorough discussion, 
the bill was passed, which, on the i6th of August, 
called forth a veto from President Tyler. On the 
19th of the same month, ^Ir. Clay addressed the 
Senate on the subject of this veto. His remarks, al- 
though apparently made ** more in sorrow than in 
anger,'' are pervaded by the spirit of unanswerable 
truth. 

The events which succeeded the veto, are 100 re- 
cent in the minds of the people to render a minute 
enmneration necessarv* here. Thev are forciblv 
summed up in Mr. Adams's excellent report on the 
President's veto of the revenue bill. A second bank 
bill, shaped to meet the avowed views of the Presi- 
dent, was prepared, passed, and tlien vetoed. The 
Cabinet, with the exception of Mr. \\'ebster, re- 
signed ; and the great purposes for which die special 
session of Congress had been called, was defeated by 
the will of one man. who owed his iniluential posi- 
tion to his professed attachment to Whig principles, 
and his declared preference for !Mr. Clay as a candi- 
date for the presidency. 



382 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

Although Mr. Clay's principal measure for the 
public relief was defeated by the unlooked-for defec- 
tion of John Tyler, he had the satisfaction of aiding 
in the repeal of the odious sub-treasury system — in 
the passage of the bankrupt law — and in the final 
triumph of his favorite measure, often baffled, but 
still persevered in, the distribution of the sales of the 
public lands. By a provision fastened upon this act 
by the amendment of another, distribution was to 
cease whenever the average rate of duties on imports 
should exceed 20 per cent. 

A revision of the tariff, rendered necessary by the 
expiration of the compromise act, was also under- 
taken. This was the most important subject wdiich 
engaged the attention of the Twenty-seventh Con- 
gress, at its first regular session. To meet the ex- 
igency of the occasion, a provisional bill, suspending 
the operation of the distribution bill for one month, 
as well in consequence of a lack of funds in the 
Treasury, as of a desire on the part of Congress to 
give more mature consideration to the subject of a 
tariff, was passed. But it encountered still another 
and another veto from the President. 

On the 31st of March, 1842, after one of the long- 
est congressional careers known in our annals, Mr. 
Clay resigned his seat in the Senate of the United 
States. It having been previously understood that 
he would take occasion, in presenting the credentials 
of his successor, Mr. Crittenden, to make some vale- 
dictory remarks, the Senate-chamber was, at an early 
hour, crowded to its utmost capacity, by members of 
the other house, and by a large assemblage of citi- 
zens and ladies, 



HENRY CLAY 383 

It was a memorable address, and Mr. Clay con- 
cluded it by invoking, in a tone which thrilled 
through every heart, the blessings of Heaven upon 
the whole Senate and every member of it. The 
hushed suspense of intense feeling and attention, per- 
vaded the crowded assemblage as he sat down. For 
nearly half a minute after he had finished, no one 
spoke — no one moved. There was not a dry eye in 
the Senate-chamber. Men of all parties seemed 
equally overcome by the pathos and majesty of that 
farewell. At length, Mr. Preston of South Carolina, 
rose and remarked, that what had just taken place 
w^as an epoch in their legislative history; and, from 
the feeling which was evinced, he plainly saw that 
there was little disposition to attend to business. He 
would, therefore, move that the Senate adjourn. 

The motion was unanimously agreed to ; but even 
then the whole audience seemed to remain spellbound 
by the effect of those parting tones of Mr. Clay. For 
several seconds no one stirred. " In all probability, 
we should have remained there to this hour," said an 
honorable Senator to us recently, in describing the 
scene, " had not Mr. Clay himself risen, and moved 
toward the area." And then, at length, slowly and 
reluctantly the assemblage dispersed. 

Shortly after the adjournment, as Mr. Calhoun 
was crossing the Senate-chamber, he and Mr. Clay 
encountered. For five years they had been es- 
tranged ; and the only words which had passed be- 
tween them had been those harshly spoken in debate. 
But now, as they thus inadvertently met, the old 
times came over them. They remembered only their 



384 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

political companionship of twenty years' standing. 
The intervening differences which had chilled their 
hearts toward each other, were forgotten. The tears 
sprang to their eyes. They shook each other cor- 
dially by the hand — interchanged a " God bless 
you!" and parted. \\'e have alluded elsewhere 
briefly to this scene. It was a happy sequel to the 
leading events of the day. 

On his return to Kentucky, after retiring from 
public life, Mr. Clay was received with all those 
manifestations of enthusiastic affection which it is 
possible for a grateful constituency to exhibit. 

In the Southwest and in the Southeast, where he 
made tours, he met overwhelming evidences of the 
general public regard. 

At Wilmington, N. C, he addressed the people, 
and one paragraph of his speech commends him to 
the confidence of his countrymen of all parties. He 
said : " I am a Whig: I am so because I believe the 
principles of the \\ hig party are best adapted to 
promote the prosperity of the country. I seek to 
change no man's allegiance to his party, be it what 
it may. A life of great length and experience has 
satisfied me that all parties aim at the common good 
of the country. The great body of the Democrats, 
as well as the Whigs, are so from a conviction that 
their policy is patriotic. I take the hand of one as 
cordially as that of another, for all are Americans. 
/ place COUNTRY far above all parties. Look aside 
from that, and parties are no longer worthy of being 
cherished.'' 

Several letters from Mr. Clay, on the subject of 



HENRY CLAY 385 

the tariff, appeared durini^ the summer of 1843. 
Notliing CDukl l)e more ex])licit and undisguised than 
the expression of his views. In liis reply, dated 13th 
September, 1843, to a letter from S. F. Bronson, 
Esq., of Georgia, asking his opinions in regard to the 
protective policy of 1832, he ivrites : — 

" The sum and substance of what T conceive to be the true 
policy of the United States, in respect to a tariff, may be 
briefly stated. In conformity with the principle announced 
in the compromise act, I think, that whatever revenue is 
necessary to an economical and honest administration of the 
general government, ouglit to be derived from duties im- 
posed on foreign imports. And I believe that, in establishing a 
tariff of those duties, such a discrimination ought to be made, 
as will incidentally afford reasonable protection to our national 
interests. 

" I think there is no danger of a high tariff being ever estab- 
lished ; that of 1828 was eminently deserving that denomina- 
tion. I was not in Congress when it passed, and did not vote 
for it; but with its history and with the circumstances which 
gave birth to it, T am \v'ell acquninted. They were highly dis- 
creditable to American legislation, and I hope, for its honor, 
will never be again repeated. 

"After my return to Congress, in 1831, my efforts were di- 
rected to the modification and reduction of the rates of duty 
contained in the act of 1828. The act of 1832 greatly reduced 
and modified them ; and the act of 1833, commonly called the 
compromise act, still farther reduced and modified them. The 
act which passed at the extra session of 1841, which I support- 
ed, was confined to the free articles. I had resigned my seat in 
the sen?te when the act of 1842 passed. Generally the duties 
which it imposes are lower than those in the act of 1832. And, 
without intending" to express my opinion upon every item of 
this last tariff, I would say that I think the provisions, in the 
main, are wise and proper. If there be any excesses or defects 
in it (of which I have not the means here of judging), they 
ought to be corrected. 

My opinion, that there is no danger hereafter of a high 

A. B.,VOL. VI. — 25 



<< 



386 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

tariff, is founded on the gratifying fact that our manufactures 
have now taken a deep root. In their infancy, they needed a 
greater measure of protection ; but, as they grow and advance, 
they acquire strength and stability, and consequently, will 
require less protection. Even now, some branches of them are 
able to maintain, in distant markets, successful competition 
with rival foreign manufactures." 

* 

By this it will be seen that Mr. Clay, so far from 
contemplating the expediency of higher and higher 
duties, believes that the rapid and constant progress 
of our manufactures tends ever to diminish, instead 
of to increase, the necessity of decidedly protective 
duties. He never was in favor of a high tariff. 

Notwithstanding his clear and unequivocal declar- 
ations, the attempt is frequently made to misrepre- 
sent Mr. Clay's views in regard to the tariff. Surely 
there is no longer any excuse for ignorance upon this 
subject among persons claiming to be intelligent. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

The Texas Question.— The Contest of 1844. 

Mr. Clay's sojourn in Washington, during the 
spring of 1844, was one of respite from the fatigues 
of travel and pubHc receptions. Events of interest 
to the country and to himself, had transpired during 
the interval of his absence. The question of the an- 
nexation of Texas, that fertile source of many w^oes, 
had come up ; and he had written a most statesman- 
like letter on the subject. Discussions in regard to 
him had been started in Congress, with the view of 
affecting his political prospects ; and a Whig conven- 
tion, assembled at Baltimore, had, on the ist of May, 
1844, nominated Henry Clay for President of the 
United States and Theodore Frelinghuysen for Vice- 
President. 

Mr. Clay's letter on the Texas question was 
written while he was partaking the hospitalities of 
Governor Morehead, at Raleigh, the 17th of April. 
In this letter, he states the fact that, during his so- 
journ in New Orleans, he had been greatly surprised 
by information received from Texas, that in the 
course of the autumn of 1843, ^ voluntary overture 
had proceeded from the Executive of the United 
States to the authorities of Texas, to conclude a 
treaty of annexation. To the astonishment of the 
whole nation, we were now informed that a treaty 

387 



388 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

of annexation had been actually concluded, and was 
to be submitted to the Senate for its consideration. 
If, without the loss of national character, without 
the hazard of foreign war, with the general concur- 
rence of the nation, without any danger to the in- 
tegrity of the Union, and without an unreasonable 
price, the question of annexation were presented, it 
would appear in quite a different light. 

And here the language of Mr. Clay has the em- 
phasis of prophecy: '* Of that consequence," he 
says, '' there cannot be a doubt. Annexation and war 
zvitli Mexico are identical/' In conclusion, he re- 
marks : '' I consider the annexation of Texas, at this 
time, without the assent of Mexico, as a measure 
compromising the national character, involving us 
certainly in war with Mexico, probably with other 
foreign pmvers, dangerous to the integrity of the 
Union, inexpedient in the present financial condition 
of the country, and not called for by any general ex- 
pression of public opinion." 

As the period for the nomination of presidential 
candidates approached, it became more and more 
apparent that the Texas question was destined to 
override all others in the coming contest. The bank, 
the tariff, and all subordinate matters, were merged 
in the one great issue of the immediate annexation 
of Texas. Among the Whigs there was a general 
acquiescence in the views of Mr. Clay on the subject. 

Soon after the withdrawal of Mr. Webster from 
the Cabinet, it began to be rumored that our govern- 
ment had made overtures inviting application from 
the authorities of Texas for its annexation to the 



HENRY CLAY 389 

United States. These overtures, It was said, were 
at first coolly received by President Houston; but 
" being again approached, not to say importuned, by 
the Executive of the United States, he coyly assented 
to listen to proposals." In the meantime, sedulous 
efforts were made to bring about that state of public 
opinion in this country that should favor the move- 
ments of the friends of annexation. Insidious ap- 
peals were multiplied throughout nearly all the 
Democratic journals, intended to arouse the jealousy 
of our people in regard to the designs of foreign 
powers. It was boldly asserted that England was 
intriguing with a view of establishing a commercial 
ascendency over Texas, and that there was great 
danger that the young republic would yield to the 
allurements which were held out. The slaveholding 
States were called upon to protect themselves against 
the danger of so formidable a rival as Texas would 
be under the protection of Great Britahi. And then 
there was the pet phrase to which, we believe, Mr. 
Bancroft first gave currency, of " extending the area 
of freedom ! " 

It now appears, from the confessions of President 
Houston's Secretary of State, Mr. Anson Jones, that 
our government was not a match for that of Texas 
in diplomacy. Mr. Jones claims that it was his 
diplomacy in bringing about the needful state of feel- 
ing in this country, which precipitated the annexa- 
tion movement. He at the same time denies that 
there was any intrigue with foreign powers injurious 
to the interests of the United States, or really adverse 
to ultimate annexation. The joint resolution of the 
House provided for the admission of Texas into the 



390 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

Union on certain conditions. The amendment of the 
Senate, which President Tyler chose to set aside, 
provided for missions and negotiations, for the ar- 
rangement of terms of admission and cession. Mr. 
Jones is of opinion that the selection by Messrs. 
Tyler and Calhoun of the House resolutions instead 
of the Senate amendment was extremely injudicious, 
and he expresses his surprise that that alternative 
should have been presented to Texas instead of the 
other and more peaceful mode presented in the 
proposition for negotiation. 

Twenty-six days after the adjournment of the con- 
vention which nominated Mr. Clav, there was an- 
other political convention in Baltimore, for the pur- 
pose of nominating presidential candidates. It met 
on the 27th of May, and, after a rather stormy ses- 
sion of three days, nominated, to the surprise of 
everybody, Mr. James K. Polk of Tennessee, for the 
presidency. The next day, Mr. George M. Dallas, of 
Pennsylvania, was nominated by the same body for 
the vice-presidency; Silas Wright, of New York, 
having declined the nomination. 

In his letter of April 23, 1844, to a committee in 
Cincinnati, Mr. Polk had remarked : '' I have no 
hesitation in declaring that I am in favor of the im- 
mediate re-annexation of Texas to the territory and 
government of the United States." There could not 
be a doubt that it was for their views on this ques- 
tion, henceforth to be made the predominant one, 
that Mr. Martin Van Buren was abandoned and Mr. 
Polk adopted as the candidate. '' Let Texas be the 
watchword," said General Jackson, subsequently, in 
his letter of June 14, 1844, ** and victory is certain." 



HENRY CLAY 39 1 

Mr. Clay's professional labors were not inter- 
rupted in consequence of his nomination. Soon 
after his return to Kentucky he engaged in an im- 
portant law case, in which he displayed as much zeal 
and watchfulness in behalf of the interests of his 
client as if he had just entered upon the practice of 
the law, and was struggling to gain his first suit. 

But now the eventful moment that was to influence 
the fate of the country for years — perhaps for cen- 
turies — was at hand. Never before were vast bodies 
of the American people so intensely interested in a 
political result as in that of the presidential election 
of November, 1844. It came at last, and with crush- 
ing effect, to thousands and hundreds of thousands, 
who had hoped and wished well for the republic. 
Mr. Clay was defeated — but defeated under circum- 
stances far less mortifying to him than such a 
triumph as that achieved by his opponent, Mr. Polk, 
would have been. He was defeated by the grossest 
and most reckless frauds that were ever perpetrated 
by the practical enemies of republican liberty. These 
frauds were alone sufficient to prevent the true ver- 
dict of the people from being rendered: but, con- 
joined with other impositions, they lead us irresisti- 
bly to the conclusion that, could an honest expres- 
sion of the public will have been obtained, it would 
have been in favor of Mr. Clay by a vast preponder- 
ance, not only of the intelligence, but of the legal 
voters of the country. Indeed, had the illegal votes 
that were polled in the State of New York alone been 
cast aside, Mr. Clay would have been the President 
of the United States. 



CHAPTER XIX 

The Frauds and Follies of 1844. 

The causes of the defeat of the Whigs in the 
presidential election of 1844, can be distinctly traced 
without the aid of hypothesis and speculation. Fore- 
most among them we may cite the foreign influence 
— wdiich, operating principally in the State of New 
York, was also powerfully felt in Pennsylvania and 
other States. Early in the canvass, Mr. Brownson, 
a recent convert to the Roman Catholic religion, the 
editor of a quarterly review published in Boston, and 
a writer of no mean abilities, gave the key-note for 
misrepresentations, which were echoed, with most 
malignant effect, from Maine to Louisiana. Of Mr. 
Frelinghuysen he wrote in the following terms : — 

" Mr. Frelinghuysen is not only a whig in the worst sense of 
the term, but he is also the very impersonation of narrow- 
minded, ignorant, conceited bigotry — a man who attacks relig- 
ious liberty, demands the unhallowed union of church and 
state, and contends that the government should legally recog- 
nize the religion of the majority, and declare whatever goes 
counter to that to be contra bonos mores. He concentrates in 
himself the whole spirit of ' Native Americanism,' and ' No 
Popery,' which displayed itself so brilliantly in the recent burn- 
ings of the catholic dwellings, seminaries, and churches, in the 
city of Philadelphia." 

Invective like this, false and flagrant, carried with 

392 



HENRY CXAY 393 

thein still some speciousness. Mr. Frelinglniysen 
was well understood to be identified with a sect more 
earnest, perhaps, than any other in their denuncia- 
tions of popery and its dangers. We all know the 
potency of religious prejudices, and how high above 
mere secular interests a believer will place the in- 
terests of the church. The Roman Catholics, em- 
bracing probably nine-tenths of our adopted citizens 
and foreign immigrants, were jealously alive to sus- 
picions and apprehensions such as Mr. Brownson and 
others, who had their confidence, saw fit to instill. 
The recollection of General Harrison's death, a 
month after his installation, and the consequent ele- 
vation of the Vice-President to his seat, were fresh 
in everybody's mind. " Why may not Mr. Freling- 
huysen become your President, and, in his Presbyte- 
rian zeal, burn your churches and drive away your 
priests?" was the question asked of thousands of 
foreigners, legal and illegal voters, with irresistible 
effect. 

A native-American party, too, had suddenly 
sprung into consequence about this time. The as- 
siduous attempts of the Locofocos [Democrats] to 
secure by any means, however disorganizing, the 
foreign vote — the repeated frauds perpetrated by 
foreigners, falsely claiming to be naturalized, at the 
polls — the gregarious and anti-American attitude as- 
sumed by bodies of them, here and there — the con- 
sideration that hordes of immigrants, utterly igno- 
rant of our political system, its workings, and its 
wants, unable, perhaps, even to read and write, had 
it in their power, after a brief residence, to vote, 



394 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

while the intelhgent American, with sympathies all 
awake to his country's interests, well versed in her 
history, and having a deep stake in her welfare, but 
who had not passed the age of twenty-one, was de- 
barred from the same privilege — facts and considera- 
tions like these, had produced a powerful reaction in 
the minds of native citizens ; and, in the States of 
New York and Pennsylvania, had given rise to a 
party, undisciplined, badly organized, and deficient 
in influential leaders, but exercising great capacities 
for mischief. All the odium produced in the minds 
of adopted citizens and foreign illegal voters, by the 
acts and denunciations of this party, was transferred, 
most unjustly, to the Whigs and Mr. Clay, while, at 
the same time, no measure of support was rendered 
to them by the new organization. Mr. Clay had 
never identified himself in any degree with the prin- 
ciples of this party. His course toward foreigners 
and adopted citizens had always been one of extreme 
liberality. Yet everywhere pains were taken by the 
opposite party to produce the impression that the 
Whig and native-American parties w^ere identical. 

Another obvious cause of the disastrous result of 
the election, was the conduct of the Abolition or 
Liberty party, which derived nine-tenths of its 
strength from the Whig ranks. There was a time 
when Mr. James G. Birney might have secured the 
election of Mr. Clay, and prevented the long train 
of predicted calamities and crimes, accompanied by 
bloodshed and afi^iction, which succeeded the annexa- 
tion of Texas. But Mr. Birney, the friend of '' lib- 
erty " and enemy of annexation, threw his influence 



HENRY CLAY 395 

in the scale of Mr. Polk, and persisted in running 
for the presidency, well knowing that he was thereby 
aiding the election of Polk. 

It seemed to be by a fatal per^'ersity, that while 
at the North, Mr. Clay was represented as an ultra 
supporter of the institution of slavery, at the South 
he should be described as an Abolitionist; although, 
to use his own language, he was " neither one nor 
the other." 

Calumny did its worst in regard to the private and 
public character of Mr. Clay, as we have already 
seen; but the political duplicity resorted to by the 
partisans of Mr. Polk, was productive of far greater 
mischief. Everywhere at the South, Mr. Polk's 
claims were based upon the ground of his opposition 
to a protective tariff, and his pledges in favor of the 
immediate annexation of Texas. At the North, he 
was represented as a better friend to the tariff than 
Mr. Clay ; while the issue of annexation was repu- 
diated wherever its unpopularity rendered such a 
course expedient. Thus, while annexation was the 
party cry in some sections, and, in fact, the great 
question of the election, care was taken to disclaim it 
so far in other sections, that the people should be 
utterly deceived as to the imminence of the measure. 

In the resolutions of the convention which nomi- 
nated Mr. Polk, there was no allusion, save a very 
equivocal one, to the tariff. This simply declared, 
that " justice and sound policy forbid the Federal 
Government to foster one branch of industrv to the 
detriment of another, or to cherish the interests of 
one portion to the injury of another portion of our 



396 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

common country " — one of those axiomatic declara- 
tions, which, it is obvious, any party might safely 
adopt. The example of disingenuousness thus given 
at the convention, was faithfully copied and im- 
proved upon by political managers everywhere. At 
the South, the declaration was made to mean every- 
thing ; at the North, nothing. 

The great and sufficient cause, however, of the 
defeat of Mr. Clay was the gross, the undeniable 
frauds practised by agents of the opposite party at 
the polls. We have spoken of the assiduous attempts 
made to excite the alarm and the prejudices of for- 
eigners against the WHiigs. The effect was to enlist 
them almost to a man in opposition to Mr. Clay. 
The month before the presidential election, there was 
an election for Governor and other State officers in 
Maryland. The result in the city of Baltimore, 
showed an increase of votes far beyond any previous 
ratio. \\'ithin a few weeks of the election, not fewer 
than a thousand naturalization ])apers had been is- 
sued. And it was ascertained that not over forty of 
the whole numljer of persons for whom they were 
procured would vote the Whig ticket ! Several con- 
victions for frauds upon the ballot-box took place in 
the courts, all the culprits being of one political com- 
plexion. A poor woman confessed that she had 
loaned the naturalization papers of her deceased hus- 
band to seventeen different persons, receiving a dol- 
lar in every instance for the use of them. Here were 
seventeen fraudulent votes accounted for! Wliat a 
farce seems the elective franchise where such profa- 
nations of the freeman's right can be practised — b^ 



HENRY CLAY 39/ j 

persons, too, just landed on our shores, having no j 

patriotic associations with the past history of the \ 

country, no knowledge of our public men and public I 

interests, and hardly able to explain the difference ; 

between a monarchical and republican form of | 
government ! 

In State after State there were evidences of fraud 

no less conclusive, \ 

All the convictions for fraud at the polls in this | 

election w^ere upon one political side, as was all the j 

presumptive evidence of fraud. ' 

In the State of New York alone, there were cast ! 

spurious votes enough to defeat the election of Mr. j 

Clay. In Louisiana, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, ' 

similar frauds were perpetrated on a smaller scale. ; 

Had the true voice of the majority of legal voters in ; 

those States been heard, the result would have been I 

favorable to the Whigs. But misrepresentation, | 

brute force, and political immorality prevailed. The | 

subject is an ungracious one to dwell upon. The his- < 

tory of the frauds of 1844 is a dark chapter in our ] 

annals. Party profligacy then exhausted its re- | 
sources in the attainment of its ends. 



CHAPTER XX 

The War on Mexico. — Financial Policy. — Public Testimonials. 

—Death of H. Clay, Jr. 

At the commencement of the second session of the 
Twenty-eighth Congress (December, 1844), the 
Acting President, Mr. Tyler, officially announced to 
the two houses that '' a controlling majority of the 
people, and a large majority of the States," had de- 
clared in favor of the immediate annexation of 
Texas, " Instructions," he added, " have thus come 
to both branches of Congress from their respective 
constituents, in terms the most emphatic. It is the 
will of both the people and the States, that Texas 
shall be annexed to the Union, promptly and imme- 
diately." He remarked further : " The two govern- 
ments having already agreed, through their respec- 
tive organs, on the terms of annexation, I would rec- 
ommend their adoption by Congress, in the form of a 
joint resolution, or act, to be perfected and made 
binding on the two countries, when adopted in like 
manner by the government of Texas." 

The subject of annexation was soon taken up in 
Congress and discussed with great zeal on both 
sides; and, finally, after the public mind had been 
intensely agitated in regard to it, the recommenda- 
tion of Mr. Tyler was adopted ; and early in March, 

398 



HENRY CLAY 399 

1845, ^ joint resolution for annexing Texas was 
passed and approved. The proposition was accepted 
by Texas, through her Congress and a convention; 
and the annexation project was complete. The inci- 
dents which followed may be briefly summed up. 
Mr. Polk was no sooner seated in the presidential 
chair, than the consequences, which Mr. Clay had 
predicted, and Mexico had threatened, began to de- 
velop themselves. The Texas we annexed was 
'' revolutionary Texas." There was, moreover, a 
disputed boundary between her and Mexico. Tn an- 
ticipation of the refusal of Mexico to receive our 
minister, Mr. Slidell, the administration gave direc- 
tions to General Taylor to take position on the west 
bank of the Rio Grande. Congress was in session at 
the time ; but Mr. Polk did not see fit to consult Con- 
gress in regard to measures which must necessarily 
lead to a collision between the two countries. It was 
only by rumors and reports that our representatives 
knew that those measures were maturing until the 
war burst forth, and the work of blood commenced 
in earnest. The territory into which the President, 
of his own caprice, had thus ordered our troops, was 
one to which neither Texas nor the United States 
had any just claim — a territory in iX)Ssession of a 
nation with which we were at peace! 

The Twent}'-ninth Congress, the first which met 
under the administration of Mr. Polk, found the 
country prosperous and contented. Under the equi- 
table tariff of 1842, domestic industry, in all its 
branches, received a wholesome measure of protec- 
tion and encouragement. Our exports and imports 



400 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

exhibited neither an undue expansion nor a contrac- 
tion indicative of a pubhc financial decHne. The 
revenue of the country was steady, ample, and re- 
liable; and the public debt which Mr. Van Buren's 
administration had originated and fostered, was di- 
minishing at the rate of millions annually. 

Undeterred by this spectacle of prosperity and har- 
mony, the administration laid its profane hands upon 
the tariff of 1842. In its stead they gave us that of 
1846. By this substitute, there is actual discrimina- 
tion against portions of the labor of the United 
States, and in favor of that of foreign countries. 
Owing to extraordinary causes, among which the 
famine in Europe and the war with Mexico are 
prominent, we have not yet fully realized the legiti- 
mate consecjuences of this disastrous retrograde 
movement in the policy of the country. 

The only class benefited by its operations were .the 
office-holders and the favored financiers of the gov- 
ernment. 

To enumerate all that Mr. Polk's administration 
has left undone, which it ought to have done, had 
the best interests of the country been consulted, 
would be but to capitulate many of those objects of 
policy which the public career of Mr. Clay exhibits 
him as contending for. 

The consequences of his non-election to the presi- 
dency have been — an unrighteous and demoralizing 
war ; the abrogation of a tariff under which the coun- 
try was thriving beyond all precedent ; and the estab- 
lishment of a sub-treasury: for all which, in the lan- 
guage of the *' ancient mariner " of Coleridge, we — 



HENRY CLAY 4OI 

" Penance much have clone, 
And penance more must do." 

We have seen that neither the untoward issue of 
the presidential contest of 1844, ^'^^^' the shades of 
Ashland, could remove Mr. Clay from before the 
public eye. Though not President of the United 
States, though dispensing no patronage, and holding 
no power of promotion, he yet exercised a moral 
sway over his countrymen which station could never 
give, nor the removal of it take away. Though not 
Chief Magistrate, he was still chief citizen of the 
republic ; and though he could not bestow lucrative 
posts and profitable jobs, he could communicate what 
was far better — high convictions of public duty, gen- 
erous views of public policy, and great truths, which 
his past acts and present opinions commended to 
every patriotic mind. 

In the spring of 1845, ■^^- Clay met with a sub- 
stantial, and, at the same time, a most touching and 
signal proof of the estimation in which he is held. A 
number of friends, residing in the Eastern States, 
having learned indirectly that a considerable portion 
of his entire property was about to be swept away 
to pay the notes of one of his family connection, on 
which he was endorser, quietly raised the sum of 
fifty thousand dollars, and paid the notes at the bank 
in which they were deposited. The first intimation 
which he had of the movement was the reception of 
his cancelled obligation ; and not a name was dis- 
closed of the individuals who had had any agency 
in the transaction. 

In the autumn of 1845, the working gold and 

A. B., VOL. VI. — 26 



402 AiMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

silver artiticers of the city of New York presented 
]\Ir. Clay a silver vase three feet high, neatly and 
elaborately chased, and bearing a complimentary in- 
scription. Its value was a thousand dollars. 

In November, 1846, a magnificent vase was pre- 
sented to Mr. Clay by the ladies of Tennessee. 

Engaged in legal and agricultural pursuits, receiv- 
ing continued testimonals of the esteem and grati- 
tude of his countrymen, and making occasional ex- 
cursions, ^Ir. Clay passed the greater portion of the 
two years which succeeded the contest of 1844. 

Mr. Clay passed a good part of the winter and 
spring of 1846 in New Orleans, whither he had 
been called by professional business. An attempt 
was made, the succeeding winter, to induce Mr. Clay 
to accept an election to the United States Senate, to 
fill the vacancy occasioned by the retirement of Mr. 
Morehead, whose term was to expire the next 4th 
of Alarch ; but ^Ir. Clay peremptorily declined the 
honor. He was again in New Orleans the succeed- 
ing winter. 

The war with Mexico was, in its results, as honor- 
able to the army of the United States, as, in its 
origin it was disgraceful to the administrations of 
Messrs. Tyler and Polk. The series of brilliant suc- 
cesses achieved under Generals Taylor and Scott — 
the rapidly succeeding victories of Palo Alto, Resaca 
de la Palma, Monterey. Buena Vista, Cerro Gordo, 
Churubusco, and Chepultepec — are unparalleled in 
the history of modern warfare, in the numerical in- 
feriority of the forces by which vast numbers were 
overcome. 



HENRY CLAY 403 

It was with heavy forebodings that Mr. Clay left 
New Orleans. Our gallant army under Taylor was 
known to be in a situation of great peril, surrounded 
by overwhelming numbers of the enemy, and depend- 
ing solely upon the personal courage of the officers 
and men, united to the intrepidity and sagacity of 
their revered general, for its safety. Mr. Clay's son 
Henry had quitted the practice of the law, and 
hastened to join the standard of his country in Mex- 
ico, early in the contest, and was now with Taylor 
at Buena Vista. This generous-spirited young man 
was born in 181 1. Having graduated with high 
honors at West Point Academy, he had studied law, 
married, travelled awhile in Europe, and returned 
to Kentucky, to serve his country on the battlefield 
when the occasion invited. » 

As Mr. Clay was leaving Frankfort for Ashland, 
he received the melancholy intelligence of the death 
of his son. The paper containing the news was 
handed to him by a friend, and he carefully read it 
until he came to the sad announcement. Then he 
trembled like an aspen, but uttered no word, save a 
command to the driver to move on. " Amid all the 
clustering honors of his elevated career," says a 
writer of the day, " Mr. Clay has been a man of sor- 
rows. The affections of his home have been great 
as his own heart, and have yearned over his children 
with an intensity of love which only noble natures 
know. But — 

" Affliction seemed enamoured of his parts ; " 

death has been busy about his hearthstone; and one 



404 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

by one he has seen many of those who so proudly 
claimed him as father or grandsire, taken from him. 
Their heritage of love devolved upon the survivors; 
and his son, who bore his name and shared his vir- 
tues, was the pride and glory of his honored old age. 
But his country demanded that son." 

" My hfe has been full of domestic afflictions, but 
this last is one of the severest among them," wrote 
Mr. Clay to a friend soon after the news of the fall 
of his son. 

An interesting event transpired at Ashland, during 
the summer of 1847. ^^ can best be told in the lan- 
guage of an eyewitness, under date of June 25th : — 

When the weather permitted it, living as he does a mile and 
a half from church, Mr. Clay has always been a regular at- 
tendant on its services ; and for two or three years past, having 
had more leisure from public duty, his attention had evidently 
been turned to the high considerations connected with things 
spiritual and eternal — his life having been devoted so intensely 
to the good of others, as scarcely, until this period of retire- 
ment, to leave him an opportunity to think of himself. But he 
has at length consecrated his great powers to God. He was 
baptized in the little parlor at Ashland, on Tuesday, the 22d 
instant, together with one of his daughters-in-law (the other 
being already a member of the church) and her four children, 
by the Rev. Edward F. Berkley, rector of Christ church, Lex- 
ington. The baptism was administered privately, for the rea- 
son that the congregation of Christ church are replacing their 
old church with a new edifice, now in rapid progress of erec- 
tion, and are not suitably situated for the most solemn and de- 
cent, administration of this rite in public. 



CHAPTER XXI 

Speech on the Mexican V/ar. 

In every important engagement in Mexico our 
armies had been successful. The victory of Buena- 
Vista had been a fitting cHmax to the mihtary opera- 
tions of Taylor ; and Scott had achieved a new con- 
quest of Mexico hardly less marvellous than that 
which Cortez had accomplished centuries before. 
The city of the Montezumas was occupied by our 
troops. The fortresses of the country and her prin- 
cipal port were in our possession. Mexico was at 
our feet ; and the question was, "What is to be done 
with our victory?'' 

Seme were for annexing tlie whole country. 
Others were for drawing a line and claiming all in- 
side of it. Some were for despoiling Mexico ; and 
others were for magnanimously abandoning all the 
fruits of our conquest. At this juncture, the 13th of 
November, 1847, ^^^- Clay, whose views upon the 
subject had been looked for with solicitude, lifted 
his voice in behalf of the humane, the honorable, 
and the politic course. It was at Lexington that his 
speech on the Mexican war was delivered. An im- 
mense concourse of citizens was present to hear him. 

After a pleasant opening, some reference to his 
own advancing years, some reflections upon war in 
general, and a statement of those views in regard to 

405 



406 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

the origin and causes of this war and which the 
reader of his Hfe is ah'eady famihar, Mr. Clay came 
to the consideration of the question, how was it to be 
brought to a satisfactory close? The mode which 
he indicated was, that Congress, inasmuch as it had 
the right, either at the beginning or during the prose- 
cution of any war, to decide the objects and purposes 
for which it was proclaimed, or for which it ought 
to be continued, should, by some deliberate and 
authentic act, declare for what objects the existing 
war should be prosecuted. He supposed the Presi- 
dent would not hesitate to regulate his conduct by 
the pronounced will of Congress, and to employ the 
force and the diplomatic power of the nation to ex- 
ecute that will. But, if the President should decline 
or refuse to do so, and. in the contempt of the 
supreme authority of Congress, should persevere in 
waging the war, for other objects than those pro- 
claimed by Congress, then it would be the imperative 
duty of that body to vindicate its authority by the 
most stringent, and effectual, and appropriate 
measures. And if, on the contrary, the enemy should 
refuse to conclude a treaty, containing stipulations 
securing the objects designated by Congress, it 
would become the duty of the whole Government 
to prosecute the war with all the national energy, 
until those objects were attained by a treaty of peace. 
There could be no insuperable dit^iculty in Congress 
making such an authoritative declaration. Let it re- 
solve, simply, that the war should or should not be 
a war of conquest: and, if a war of conquest, what 
was to be conquered. 



HENRY CLAY 407 

To the project of annexation Mr. Clay expressed 
his decided hostility ; upon the question of the exten- 
sion of the system of negro slavery over newly 
acquired territory, Mr. Clay spoke with that same 
ingenuousness which characterized his views on the 
slavery question, when, nearly fifty years ago iii 
Kentucky, he declared his belief that the proportion 
of slaves in comparison with the whites was so in- 
considerable, that a system of gradual emancipation, 
that would ultimately eradicate the evil, might be 
safely adopted. That system differed from the plan 
of immediate abolition for which the abolition party 
of the present day contend. That party had done in- 
calculable mischief even to the very cause which 
they espoused, to say nothing of the discord which 
they had produced between different parts of the 
country. Mr. Clay then alluded to the efforts of 
the American Colonization Society, of which he had 
been one of the principal founders. He then con- 
tinued : 

"It may be argued that, in admitting the injustice of slavery, 
I admit the necessity of an instantaneous reparation of that 
injustice. Unfortunately, however, it is not always safe, prac- 
ticable, or possible, in the great movements of states and public 
affairs of nations, to remedy or repair the infliction of previous 
injustice. In the inception of it, we may oppose and denounce 
it, by our most strenuous exertions, but, after its consumma- 
tion, there is often no other alternative left us but to deplore 
its perpetration, and to acquiesce, as the only alternative, in its 
existence, as a less evil than the frightful consequences which 
might ensue from the vain endeavor to repair it. Slavery is 
one of those unfortunate instances. The evil of it was inflicte^ 
upon us, by the parent-country of Great Britain, against all the 
entreaties and remonstrances of the colonies. And here it is 



408 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

among and amid ns, and we must dispose of it as best we can 
under all the circumstances which surround us. It continued, 
by the importation of slaves from Africa, in spite of colonial 
resistance, for a period of more than a century and a half, and 
it may require an equal or longer lapse of time before our 
country is entirely rid of the evil. And, in the meantime, 
moderation, prudence, and discretion, among ourselves, and 
the blessings of Providence, may be all necessary to accomplish 
our ultimate deliverance from it." 

The sentiments and the poHcy recommended by 
Mr. Clay in this practical and eloquent speech were 
embodied in a series of resolutions, which he read 
and submitted to the judgment of the meeting, and 
which were enthusiastically passed. 

The promulgation of his sentiments were attended 
with the hapi)iest effects, not only at home in shap- 
ing public opinion, but in Mexico in influencing her 
public men in the adoption of temperate and pacific 
counsels. *Tt is hardly possible," wrote one of the 
journalists of the day, " to overestimate the impor- 
tance of this step. 



>> 



CHAPTER XXII 

Colonization. — Civic Receptions. 

Early in the congressional session of 1847-48, 
Mr. Clay was carried by professional business to 
Washington. His reception there was brilliant and 
hearty beyond measure. He had declined all public 
testimonials, but he could not evade the greetings 
which the people rose as one man to extend. " Mr. 
Clay's personal popularity suffers no abatement," 
wTites one. " He cannot move without having a 
throng at his heels. He lives in an atmosphere of 
hurrahs." He spoke at a meeting of the American 
Colonization Society in January, 1848, in the hall 
of the House of Representatives. 

The speech before the Colonization Society was 
followed, on the nth of February, 1848, by his 
appearance in the Supreme Court room as one of the 
counsel in the case of William Houston and others 
versus the City Bank of New Orleans. " At an 
early hour," says a correspondent, "the avenues lead- 
ing to the Capitol were thronged with crowds of the 
aged and young, the beautiful and gay, all anxious 
to hear — perhaps for the last time — the voice of the 
sage of Ashland. On no former occasion was the 
Supreme Court so densely packed — every inch of 
space was occupied, even to the lobbies leading to 

409 



4IO AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

the Senate. Mr. Clay rose a few minutes after 
eleven o'clock, the hour at which the court is organ- 
ized. It has been often said, and truly, that he never 
was and never could be reported successfully. His 
magic manner, the captivating tones of his voice, and 
a natural grace, singular in its influence and pecul- 
iarly his own, can never be transferred to paper. 
To realize their charms, he must be seen and heard. 

The fourth Monday in May, and the 7th of June, 
having been fixed upon by the administration party 
and the Whigs respectively for their conventions for 
the nomination of presidential candidates, meetings 
began to be held throughout the country, at which 
strong preferences for ^Ir. Clay were enthusiasti- 
cally expressed. Many good Whigs thought it more 
expedient to put up General Taylor, and discussions. 
which the future only could decide, were entered 
upon, generally with candor and in a good spirit. 
New York proclaimed herself for Clay in a mass 
meeting at Castle Garden, believed to be not less 
than ten thousand strong. ''But its numbers," said 
the Tribune, " vast as they were were but a single 
element of this immense meeting. In character, in- 
telligence, order, and dignity, we doubt whether an 
assemblage more deserving of respect, was ever seen. 
Although the deep and ardent enthusiasm for Clay 
would frequently burst out in cheers like thunder- 
peals, especially at every allusion to our great 
leader's name, yet no word (that zve heard) was 
uttered, or sentiment evinced, disrespectful to his 
rivals.'"' 

It is impracticable, of course, to reproduce the full 



HENRY CLAY 4II 

accounts of civic receptions innumerable which were 
extended to Henry Clay, but a tour at this time was 
so characteristic of the peculiar affection the people 
seemed to feel for this man, that some memories 
of it should be retained. He went by way of Phila- 
delphia to New York. A steamboat — the C. Van- 
derbilt — w^as sent to meet him at Amboy. The 
Philadelphia committee transferred their guest to 
the New York committee, and their chairman, Mor- 
ton MacMichael, said : 

"' The whole people of Philadelphia, animated by one com- 
mon impulse of affection, poured forth into the streets, 
thronged the roofs and windows of the houses, till they pre- 
sented such a spectacle as was never seen before. ' So it was 
the next day, so it was all the days that he was among us. So 
constant, so tireless., so enthusiastic, were the well-meant 
kindnesses of our people, that I for one was afraid that the 
object of them would be totally overwhelmed and exhausted. 
Those overflowing marks of love were such, indeed, as few but 
Henry Clay could have elicited : nay, they were such as hardly 
any, save himself, could have endured. They came, too, from 
deeper feelings than party motives : they sprang from those 
beautiful instincts of our spiritual nature, which prompt ad- 
miration for whatever is truly great, and noble, and exalted in 
man ! They showed that men love and reverence those who 
lift themselves above the meanness and narrowness to which 
less gifted and elevated natures are prone, and showed that in 
so doing, all must deeply and truly love and reverence Henry 
Clay. Yes, reverence him as one whose tongue was never 
tainted with falsehood, nor his soul stained with shame ! 

' ' Nor was it the members of his own party alone who thus 
arose to do him honor, but the members of all parties. All 
looked to him — all turned to him — all were irresistibly drawn 
to him, as to one before whom Nature herself could stand up 
and say to all the world, " This is a man ! " ' " 

When at last the party reached Castle Garden, an 
impressive spectacle presented itself. The whole of 



412 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

that vast area was filled with people, waiting" with 
impatience for his arrival. As soon as he entered, 
he was greeted hy deafening cheers, which were re- 
peated nntil it seemed as if the people would not have 
done with these proofs of their affection for their 
distinguished visitor. At last silence was restored, 
when the speeches hegan. Among the words of Mr. 
Clay were these : 

" My arrival here to-day has hcen signalized by the dis- 
charge of cannon, by the display of flags, by the sound of gay 
and exulting music, and by the shouts and cheers of an affec- 
tionate multitude directed toward myself. I am proud and 
thankful for those evidences of regard, and of value, for the 
humble services of an individual whom you esteem fnr too 
highly. But, sir, these testimonies offered to the living, could 
not fail to remind me of the just honors about to be paid to 
the dead. To-morrow's sun will rise upon another and a dif- 
ferent spectacle than that which it to-day beholds, as the ven- 
erable remains of the illustrious ex-president of the United 
States reach this city. [John Quincy Adams, who had died 
February 22d.] Then, instead of the cheers of joy and glad- 
ness which have been uttered upon this occasion, there will be 
the still expression of solemn and saddened feeling. As I con- 
template the scene which will be presented on that anticipated 
arrival, as I recollect the signal services and glorious career 
of the great departed, and the position to which he now has 
passed — a position which awaits us all — I am moved to sup- 
press the feelings of grateful joy which would otherwise over- 
flow within me on an occasion so honorable to myself. Ought 
not the contrast between this day's performances — between 
the joy and gladness this day manifested on the arrival of an 
humble individual, wdiose eff'orts in our country's behalf you 
much too highly appreciate, and the ceremonies which will 
follow to-morrow, to make a deep impression on our minds? 
Ought they not for the few day remaining to us to moderate 
the unworthy impulses which m.ost men bring into the strife 
of existence — to repress and diminish the violence of party 
contests, and the heat and acrimony of party feeling, for tb.e 
brief space which intervenes between the present moment and 



HENRY CLAY 413 

that moment near at hand when we shall be all laid low in 
the narrow house which our venerable and pure-hearted pa- 
triot now occupies? 

" I hope, Mr. Mayor, that we may profit by this contrast, 
and hereafter entertain less of that embittered feeling which 
too often urges us, that we may restrain our ardor in the pur- 
suit of cherished objects in the sense of responsibility which 
we ought to cherish toward the Governor of all, and in the 
expectation of that moment which must sooner or later bring 
us all to the dust. 

" Mr. Mayor, I could not pass by this topic, thus suggested 
to me. And now, sir, will you permit me to thank yourself 
and the public authorities of the people of this city, for this 
splendid reception, and for the kindness and liberal hospitality 
which you have authorized me to expect at your hands ? " 

Mr. Clay concluded, with loud applause from the 
assembled multitude, by whom he had also been 
frequently interrupted in the course of his remarks. 

The procession was then formed at the Battery, 
and moved up through Broadway in the appointed 
order, amid the cheers of the almost impassable mass 
who had assembled from one end of the street to 
the other, on this beautiful afternoon, to do honor 
to Henry Clay. 

The Tribune, in speaking of his visit to New 
York, says : "Mr. Clay has been with us five days, 
and through the whole time has received such tokens 
of deep respect and enthusiastic attachment, as no 
man but himself could have elicited. We now see 
how firmly he stands in the affections, not of a few 
persons, or of any particular class, but of the whole 
people. If there were any doubt before, the fact is 
now undeniable, that no man lives who is so trulv 
beloved, revered, and trusted, by the people of this 
city, as Henry Clay." 



CHAPTER XXIII 

Mr. Clay as a Lawyer and as a Man. 

Of such paramount interest have been the details 
of Mr. Clay's public career, that we have but little 
room to bestow upon his private and professional 
history, honorable as it has been to him. We have 
alluded to his early successes at the bar, but space 
fails us in the attempt to supply even an imperfect 
sketch of his numerous triumphant efforts in the 
sphere of his profession — efforts which have not 
failed in brilliancy and success with the arrival of 
his threescore and tenth year. 

Owing to the more popular character of his politi- 
cal labors, he has not enjoyed, out of the boundary 
of the Supreme Court, half the reputation which 
was his due as a jurist of extensive attainments and 
profound ability. But the writer has been assured 
by the late Mr. Justice Story, that Mr. Clay was 
regarded by Chief Justice Marshall as second in 
these respects to no lawyer in the country. His 
arguments always evinced great reflection, and 
oftentimes extensive legal erudition : and his appeals 
were of that generous and elevated character, which 
rejects every aid of a narrow or pettifogging cast. 

Mr. Clay is now (1848) in his seventy-first year, 

and, notwithstanding his varied and arduous labors, 

414 



HENRY CLAY 415 

tasking his mental and physical powers to an ex- 
traordinary degree, and the several periods of dan- 
gerous illness to which he has been subject, he bears 
in his personal appearance the promise of a vigorous, 
healthful and protracted old age. In stature he is 
tall, sinewy, erect, and commanding, with finely 
formed limbs, and a frame capable of much endur- 
ance. From his features, you might at first infer 
that he was a hardy backwoodsman, who had been 
accustomed rather to the privations and trials of a 
frontier life, than to the arena of debate and the 
diplomatic table. But when you meet his full, clear 
gray eye, you see in its flashes the conscious power 
of a well-trained and panoplied intellect, as well as 
the glance of an intrepid soul. Its lustre gives ani- 
mation to the whole countenance, and its varying 
expression faithfully interprets the emotions and sen- 
timents of the orator. Much of the charm of his 
speaking lies in his clear, rotund, and indescribably 
melodious voice, which is of wide compass and as 
distinct in its low as in its high tones. The effect of 
it when a passion is to be portrayed or a feeling of 
pathos aroused is like that of a rich instrument upon 
the ear. 

Nothing could be more felicitous than Mr. Clay's 
personal manners and address. They convey to 
every one the conviction that he is a true man — that 
there is no sham about him and his professions. 
Frank, affable, natural, and communicative, he was 
without assumption, as much at home among Euro- 
pean potentates as among his own constituents at 
a barbecue. His perfect self-possession and repose 



4l6 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

of manner spring, not so much from long intercourse 
with the world and with society, as from that in- 
digenous democratic instinct, that true nobleness of 
character, which looks unaffectedly to the inward 
man solely, and not to the outside insignia with 
which he may be decorated. 

Never was public man so personally popular in 
the United States. "The true source of his extraor- 
dinary influence," says a writer of the day, " is to 
be found in that most potent of all human influences, 
a true and ready synipathy. There are no barriers 
between his heart and the hearts of others. Bring 
them in contact, and the efflux of his kindly feeling 
is instantaneous. Instead of sullenly wrapping him- 
self in the thoughts of self, he thinks of others. His 
thoughts become their thoughts, and their thoughts 
become his thoughts. An interchange of kindly feel- 
ing becomes spontaneous and immediate. Mr. Clay 
is not only a strong man in himself, but he possesses 
the ability to command and carry with him all 
human agencies and influences which come within 
the sphere of his action." 

In his integrity and uprightness of character, no 
one who was ever brought in contact with him, could 
fail to place the most implicit reliance. "He is an 
honest man," says one, who knows him well ; "he is 
a fair-dealing man ; he is a true man ; he is a man 
who believes in his own principles, who follows his 
own convictions, who avows his own sentiments and 
acts on them, who never deserted a friend, who was 
never deterred from his purpose, who was never 
seduced from what he undertook to do. He is a man 



HENRY CLAY 417 

of faith, in the largest sense of that word. No man 
has e\^er been more severely tried in public life in 
this country ; and no man ever exhibited a more 
sublime manhood in all his great and repeated ex- 
hibitions of that noblest of all qualities in a public 
man — trustworthiness. The nation may rely on him 
that he is what he is, and that he will do what he 
says he will do." 

"In our opinion, the most remarkable mental en- 
dowment of Mr. Clay is his common sense. He is 
the most sagacious public man this country has pro- 
duced, except Benjamin Franklin. His knowledge 
of affairs seems rather intuitive than the result of 
experience. We have heard him deliver some of his 
greatest speeches. We have read them all. His 
fame as an orator is world-wide. But what is the 
oratory of those great discourses? No flowers of 
rhetoric adorn them ; no vast fund of acquired erudi- 
tion enriches them. Mr. Clay hardly ever cjuotes 
from books. No elaborate argumentation. W^hat 
then? The grandeur of an intellect that seems to 
perceive truth intuitively, united to a pathos as fer- 
vent as that of Demosthenes : this is the man, full of 
spirit, full of sense." 

In his tastes and habits of life, Mr. Clay is remark- 
ably simple and unostentatious. He is an early riser, 
and methodical and industrious in the disposition of 
his time. His punctuality is proverbial. He is quite 
as noted as Washington was for his good quality; 
which we generally find in the greatest perfection 
with those who have the greatest consideration for 
others. 

A. B., VOL. VI. — 27 



4t8 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

It is with Mr. Clay's public history that we have 
mainly to deal. The legislative annals of the nation 
are the sources from which it may be devised 
There it stands amply and immutably recorded, 
through a period of more than forty years. From 
those magnificent quarries of the past, the materials 
will be drawn for a monument more perennial than 
marble or brass. Never were the views of a public 
man upon all questions of public policy more ingen- 
uously and unequivocally expressed — more clearly 
and broadly defined. 

Such a man is Henry Clay! And in no public 
act of his life does he seem to have been actuated by 
other than pure and patriotic motives. 'T would 

RATHER BE RIGHT THAN BE PRESIDENT." In that 

expression we have a key to his conduct from the 
moment he first entered the national councils ; and in 
that expression we have an earnest of the single- 
heartedness of purpose with which the affairs of the 
country would be conducted under his administra- 
tion. But the presidency could not add to his fame. 
The wonder of the wise and the good that he was not 
President, would speak louder in his behalf, and be 
a prouder tribute to his worth, than their exultation 
at his success. 

New York, May, 1848. 



End of Sargent's Life of Clay. 



CHAPTER XXIV* 

The Presidential Contest of 1848. 

Mr. Clay^s name, in connection with the presi- 
dency was again presented to the Whig National 
Convention which met at Philadelphia, in June, 
1848. It is due to his unchanging friends that the 
grounds on which they urged his nomination at 
this time should be fairly set forth. 

He was the very man, confessedly, whom nine- 
tenths of the Whigs of the whole Union preferred 
to all other men for President. His Genius, his 
Talents, his Eloquence, his Patriotism, and, in the 
better sense, his popularity, had for twenty years 
rendered him the practical and conceded champion 
and master-spirit of the Whig party, of which he 
might without extravagance have been termed the 
creating life, the animating soul. If the question had 
been, "Whom do the Whigs desire to elect Presi- 
dent?" it was already most emphatically decided. 
No one pretended to doubt that the first choice of an 
immense majority of the Whigs was Henry Clay. 

The first question, then, for practical consideration 
was this — Can Mr. Clay be elected? Is the Whig 
party strong enough, in and of itself, to nominate 

* For this chapter, and all that follows it, the reader will 
hold the Editor [H. G.] solely responsible. 

419 



420 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

the man of Its choice with a reasonable probabihty 
of electing him? 

Mr. Clay, it was notorious, had been repeatedly 
beaten; but only once when he was sustained by the 
full strength of the Whig party. The scrub race of 
1824 had only demonstrated one thing — the hostility 
of the people to the abuses and corruptions of con- 
gressional caucuses. All beyond this was accidental 
— fortuitous. In 1832, the Anti-Jackson strength 
was divided by Anti-Masonry, which abstracted 
from Mr. Clay the votes of several States which he 
would otherwise have carried. And in 1844, Mr. 
Clay was barely beaten by unscrupulous misrepre- 
sentations and bv the atrocious frauds and ille""al 
votings, whereof the Plaquemine canvass in Louis- 
iana afforded the most conspicuous illustration. 
That a majority of the legal voters of New York 
and Louisiana cast their ballots for Mr. Clay, in 
1844, is morally, though not legally, demonstrable. 
That a majority of those of Pennsylvania would 
have done so had they not been deceived and misled, 
is also palpable. The votes of these States, added 
to those actually thrown for Mr. Clay, would have 
given him nearly two-thirds of the entire Electoral 
body, and rendered his election more triumphant 
than was that of Mr. Polk. Yet in no canvass were 
Whig principles ever more plainly and thoroughly 
proclaimed, nor more absolutely relied on, than in 
that of 1844, by the supporters of Mr. Clay. 

But the friends of Mr. Clay cherished serious ob- 
jections, moreover, to the support of General Taylor, 
his leading competitor for the nomination, in view 



HENRY CLAY 42 I 

of the circumstances under which his name was pre- 
sented. That General Taylor was an honest, brave, 
humane patriot and soldier, they were not inclined 
to doubt ; but his life had been mainly spent in camps 
and forts on the frontier at or beyond the outskirts 
of civilization ; so that he was confessedly ignorant, 
to a remarkable degree, of the great questions of 
public policy which for a generation had convulsed 
the country. He had never voted at an}^ election, 
and no one could say when or where, prior to the 
suggestion of his name for the Presidency, he had 
evinced any decided interest in, or even familiarity 
with, those great beneficent principles and measures 
for which the Whigs had so patiently and resolutely 
struggled. To nominate him for President, there- 
fore, in view of his no-party professions and the 
corresponding impulses which first designated him 
as a candidate, seemed to many of the Old Guard 
like abandoning the great purposes of our organiza- 
tion as a party, and advertising the world that we 
cared more for grasping the offices than for advanc- 
ing our principles. Such considerations made the 
thought of surrendering Mr. Clay for any other can- 
didate, but especially General Taylor, exceedingly 
distasteful to a large proportion of the most zealous, 
intelligent, and devoted Whigs. 

On the other hand, it was urged — True, General 
Taylor is not a statesman of the same grade with 
Mr. Clay ; but he is an honest, patriotic Whig, who 
will hear and heed advice from all those whom a 
Whig President should heed — he is eminently a man 
of strong common sense, of popular sympathies, of 
liberal views, and immensely popular with all those 



422 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

who are but loosely or not at all attached to any 
party. He is already the declared and accepted can- 
didate of these; his nomination will be generally 
hailed as an omen and forerunner of triumph ; and 
his election will do much to calm the effervescence 
and assuage the bitterness of party spirit, restoring, 
in good degree, the golden eras of Washington and 
Monroe. 

These considerations ultimately prevailed, and 
General Zachary Taylor was declared the Whig 
candidate for President. 

The contest, though much closer than the more 
ardent friends of General Taylor had predicted, re- 
sulted in his election, and on the 4th of March, 1849, 
Zachary Taylor, of Louisiana, was inaugurated as 
President, and Millard Fillmore, of New York, as 
Vice-President for the ensuing four years. 

During 1849, the people of Kentucky elected and 
held a Convention to revise their State Constitution. 
In view of the election, Mr. Clay addressed them a 
long and able letter, temperately setting forth his 
reasons for desiring that a plan of Gradual Emanci- 
pation and Colonization should be adopted. His 
views were overruled by a large majority ; but their 
utterance is none the less creditable to their author. 

General Taylor, having been elected President in 
November, 1848, but not yet inaugurated, Mr. Clay, 
on the assembling of the new Kentucky Legislature, 
in December, 1848, was again chosen a Senator of 
the United States for a full term of six years from 
the 4th of March, 1849. ^is election was unani- 
mous. 



CHAPTER XXV 

Texas Annexation and Boundary. — Slavery Extension. 

The struggle for the Annexation of Texas to our 
Union was regarded by all discerners as marking a 
new era in the history of this country. From the 
moment the project was adopted by John Tyler as a 
last desperate expedient for the prolongation of his 
power, a perilous sectional excitement was inevitable. 
His Secretary of State, John C. Calhoun, in officially 
explaining and justifying the course of the Executive 
in acceding to Annexation, expressly based it on a 
lively apprehension that the existence and perpetuity 
of slavery in the Union might be endangered by its 
abolition in Texas, which he deemed likely to be 
brought about by some arrangement between that 
country, should it remain independent, and Great 
Britain. General James Hamilton, of South Caro- 
lina, toasted Annexation as a measure calculated to 
give " a Gibraltar to the South." Every vehement 
advocate of slavery as '' a corner-stone of our repub- 
lican edifice,'' became instinctively a champion of 
Annexation ; every slave-trader at once prepared to 
forget, or to sink, all party differences in its favor; 
and, long before the country had been fully aroused 
to the true nature and magnitude of the issue, a very 
powerful interest, consisting in part of the stocks, 
bonds, &c., of Texas, had been concentrated upon 

423 



424 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

the issue of Annexation, eager to make it override all 
others. 

At the North, on the other hand, a very general 
aversion to the scheme was entertained. The un- 
popularity of Tyler, previously emphatic, was in- 
creased by this project of Annexation, on which it 
reflected discredit in turn. Annexation had no 
avowed friends in the Free States, beyond the three 
or four hundred persons whom the possession or the 
hope of spoils still attached to the waning fortunes 
of Tyler, and the still smaller number who were in- 
terested in Texas Stocks and Bonds. And when, by 
the nomination of Polk and Dallas, the Democratic 
party was inextricably committed to Annexation, the 
greater portion of its members in New York and 
other Free States, under the lead of such men as 
Silas Wright and B. F. Butler, still proclaimed their 
invincible hostility to any scheme of Annexation 
which should inure to the benefit of slavery — to any 
Annexation wdiich did not guarantee equal advan- 
tage to the Free with the Slave States. 

These professions were not justified by their sub- 
sequent acts — if indeed they could have been without 
cutting loose from and defying the bands of party. 
Mr. Polk having been elected as an avowed and un- 
conditioned Annexationist, and thus clothed with 
immense patronage and power, the triumph of An- 
nexation was inevitable, and the imposition of con- 
ditions unpalatable to the great bulk of its supporters 
and patrons impossible. Feeble efforts to limit or 
qualify the victory of the Slave Power were made in 
the House by Richard D. Davis, of New York, and 



HENRY CLAY 425 

John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, but with no other 
effect than that of silencing the former into sub- 
serviency, and driving the latter out of the party. 
Annexation was decreed by joint resolutions of the 
two Houses, a day or two before Mr. Polk's formal 
accession to power, upon conditions which secured its 
whole territory to slavery, and imposed no effectual 
limitations on the claim of Texas to extend her do- 
minion to the Rio Grande, and thus absorb one-half 
of the Mexican department of Tamaulipas, a portion 
of Chihuahua, Coahuila, and nearly the whole vast 
extent of New Mexico, where the Spanish or Mexi- 
can Flag had waved in undisputed supremacy from 
a period long anterior to the settlement of the Cava- 
liers at Jamestown, or the landing of the Pilgrims at 
Plymouth. And Mr. Polk, by ordering the march of 
a strong detachment of troops to the banks of the 
Rio Grande opposite Matamoros, evinced a determi- 
nation to support the utmost claims of Texas with 
the whole power of the government, and secure to 
slavery the fullest measure of aggrandizement from 
its triumph. 

Thus was the war with Mexico provoked and com- 
menced ; such were the aspects under which it was 
prosecuted. But when, after a year of unbroken suc- 
cess, the President applied to Congress for three 
millions of dollars to be used, if advisable, in the ne- 
gotiation of a peace, it became evident that large ac- 
quisitions of territory, even beyond the apocryphal 
limits of Texas, were meditated ; and now, the 
Northern Democracy, smarting under a sense of the 
justice of the Whig taunts that, in this whole busi- 



426 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

ness of Texan Annexation and Mexican War, the 
blood and treasure of the nation had been lavished 
for the extension of Slavery, were stirred up to an 
assertion of independence. When the $3,000,000 
proposition aforesaid came up for decision in the 
House, a hasty consuhation was held between the 
leading Democrats of the North, from which resulted 
a Proviso, moved by Mr. Wilmot of Pennsylvania, 
and hence designated by his name, declaring that no 
territory zvliich might be acquired from Mexico at 
the close of the war should be opened to the introduc- 
tion of slaves. This Proviso was adopted by the 
House : nearly all the members from the Free States, 
without distinction of party, sustaining it ; but it 
failed in the Senate, where it was left over unacted 
on, having been received from the House just pre- 
vious to the hour fixed for the close of the session of 
1847. ^^^ though the question was repeatedly re- 
vived during the three following sessions, and the 
principle of the Wilmot Proviso nearly as often re- 
affirmed by the House, yet it was never concurred in 
by the Senate, but on several occasions negatived by 
that body. The short session of 1848-49 was ren- 
dered memorable by an earnest and protracted strug- 
gle, respecting the organization of the territories 
acquired by conquest and treaty from Mexico — the 
House insisting on the interdiction of slavery there- 
in, and the Senate rejecting any such condition. 
Ultimately, the session closed as it had begun, no 
Wilmot Proviso having been passed, nor any legal 
provision made for the civil organization of the 
territories. 



HENRY CLAY 42/ 

The question of prohibiting slavery in the terri- 
tories necessarily blended with and embarrassed the 
settlement of the boundary of Texas. The historical 
as well as actual Territory of Texas, prior to her 
Annexation, stopped far short of the Rio Grande, 
and in fact extended no farther west and south than 
the Valley of the Nueces ; and that it did not extend 
beyond 34° north, is indisputable. 

But when President Polk, by marching our army 
down to the Rio Grande while our government still 
professed to maintain amicable relations with Mex- 
ico, had clearly assumed that the territorial rights of 
Texas were coextensive with her utmost claims, and 
Congress had formally asserted that in the conflicts 
which followed within sight of Matamoros, " Ameri- 
can blood " had been shed on " American soil," 
Texas very naturally insisted that all cavil or hesita- 
tion by the Federal Government as to the rightful- 
ness of her claim was precluded, and that its validity 
was fully admitted and established. Whatever ob- 
jection to that claim Mexico might have offered, the 
United States could interpose none without an im- 
peachment of tJieir ozi'U integrity and veracity. 
When, therefore, the whole of New Mexico and the 
left bank of the lower Rio Grande became by con- 
cjuest and treaty the territory of the United States, 
Texas took possession of the latter, and asserted her 
right to the former as one which the Federal Govern- 
ment could with decency neither gainsay nor resist. 
And if the party which plunged the country into war 
on the assumption that Texas extended to the Rio 
Grande had continued in power, it is not probable 
that the claim would have been effectually resisted. 



42 8 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

The election of General Taylor, however, changed 
materially the aspects of the case. The Whigs, as a 
party, had always scouted the territorial claims of 
Texas as preposterous, and consequently regarded 
the war on Mexico as originated in fraud and prose- 
cuted in falsehood and iniquity. General Taylor 
himself was thoroughly convinced that Texas had 
no more right to New Mexico than to Oregon, and 
w^as ready as President to repel force by force, if 
needful, in resistance to her pretensions. And as 
Texas, instigated by the propagandists of slavery in 
other States of the South, proclaimed and evinced a 
determination to vindicate her claim by the sword, 
a collision between her authority and that of the 
Union seemed, through a part of 1850, imminent — • 
a collision in which the active support of Texas by 
the whole force of the Slave States, and a conse- 
quent disruption of the Union, were by many deemed 
inevitable. 

The Democratic party of the Free States, though 
it had very generally professed to acquiesce in the 
principle of the Wilmot Proviso, and though many 
of its leaders in Congress and elsewhere affected 
great zeal for the preservation of Free Soil from the 
blighting tread of slavery, manifested no disposition 
to resist the subjugation of New Mexico to the do- 
minion of slavery under the pretence of organizing 
it as part of the rightful territory of Texas. Hav- 
ing so recently and so vehemently asserted the justice 
of the war on Mexico, and of course affirmed the 
rightfulness of the territorial claims of Texas, the 
party could not, without palpable and glaring incon- 



HENRY CLAY 429 

sistency, resist the acts of Texas in further assertion 
of those chiims and in undeniable accordance there- 
with. Thus, with nearly the entire South support- 
ing the pretensions of Texas for slavery's sake, and 
the North divided and paralyzed by the committal of 
one-half its statesmen and people to those preten- 
sions through their justification of the war on Mex- 
ico, there remained no hope of any direct action by 
Congress looking to the preservation of New^ Mexico 
from the doom that threatened her. The danger was 
great and obvious, that while Congress daily effer- 
vesced with Free Soil professions and speeches, and 
a majority of the House seemed engrossed with 
anxiety to preserve California and Utah from the 
very remote and contingent peril of an establishment 
of slavery therein. New Mexico might be absorbed 
by Texas, and thus converted into a slavery-sustain- 
ing region as large as France, carrying the ' pecul- 
iar institution ' up to 42° north or nearly the latitude 
of Boston. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

The Slavery Compromise of 1850. 

Such were the circumstances under which Mr. 
Clay on the 29th of January, 1850, submitted to the 
Senate his plan for an adjustment of the differences 
respecting the organization of the territories and 
the interdiction of slavery therein. The subject is 
so important in itself, and has so profoundly affected 
the subsequent politics of the country, that justice to 
Mr. Clay seems to require that his original proposi- 
tions should here be given in full. 

The preamble and resolutions are as follows : 

It being desirable for the peace, concord, and harmony of 
the union of these States to settle and adjust amicably all ex- 
isting questions of controversy between them arising out of 
the institution of slavery, upon a fair, equitable, and just 
basis : Therefore 

1st. Resolved, That California, with suitable boundaries, 
ought, upon her application, to be admitted as one of the 
States of this Union, without the imposition by Congress of 
any restriction in respect to the exclusion or introduction of 
slavery within those boundaries. 

2. Resolved, That as slavery does not exist by law, and is 
not likely to be introduced into any of the territory acquired 
by the United States from the republic of Mexico, it is inex- 
pedient for Congress to provide by law either for its intro- 
duction into or exclusion from any part of the said territory; 
and that appropriate territorial governments ought to be es- 
tablished by Congress in all of the said territory, not assigned 

430 



HENRY CLAY 43 1 

as the boundaries of the proposed State of CaHfomia, without 
the adoption of any restriction or condition on the subject of 
slavery. 

3d. Resolved, That the western boundary of the State of 
Texas ought to be fixed on the Rio del Norte, commencing 
one marine league from its mouth, and running up that river 
to the southern line of New Mexico ; thence with that line 
eastwardly, and so continuing in the same direction to the 
line established between the United States and Spain, exclud- 
ing any portion of New Mexico, whether lying on the east or 
west of that river. 

4th. Resolved, That it be proposed to the State of Texas, 
that the United States will provide for the payment of all that 
portion of the legitimate and bona fide public debt of that 
state, contracted prior to its annexation to the United States, 
and for which the duties on foreign imports were pledged by 

the said State to its creditors, not exceeding the sum of $ , 

in consideration of the said dues so pledged having been no 
longer applicable to that object after the said annexation, but 
having thenceforward become payable to the United States ; 
and upon the condition also, that the said State of Texas 
shall, by some solemn and authentic act of her legislature, or 
of a convention, relinquish to the United States any claim 
which it has to any part of New Mexico. 

5th. Resolved, That it is inexpedient to abolish Slavery in 
the District of Columbia, whilst that institution continues to 
exist in the State of Maryland, without the consent of that 
State, without the consent of the people of the District, and 
without just compensation to the owners of slaves within the 
District. 

6th. But Resolved, That it is expedient to prohibit within 
the District the slave-trade, in slaves brought into it from 
States or places beyond the limits of the District, either to 
be sold therein as merchandise, or to be transported to other 
markets without the District of Columbia. 

7th. Resolved, That more effectual provision ought to be 
made by law, according to the requirement of the Constitution, 
for the restitution and delivery of persons bound to service or 
labor in any State who may escape into any other State or 
Territory in the Union. 



432 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

And 8th. Resolved, That Congress has no power to prohibit 
or obstruct the trade in slaves between the slaveholding 
States; but that the admission or exclusion of slaves brought 
from one into another of them depends exclusively upon their 
own particular laws. 

The careful reader cannot fail to perceive that 
Mr. Clay's propositions, though couched in lan- 
guage inoffensive to the pride of the South, were 
calculated and intended to exclude slavery from 
all the territory acquired from Mexico by treaty. 
In authoritatively affirming that the " peculiar 
institution " had no legal foothold in that terri- 
tory, it effectually precluded its establishment there- 
in; since slavery was very unlikely to be estab- 
lished by others than slaveholders, and these 
could liardly increase and multiply so as to obtain 
controlling power in a region where slaves could not 
be legally held. In proposing the extinguishment of 
whatever claim Texas might be supposed to have to 
New Mexico, he provided also for the almost certain 
exclusion of slavery from the latter ; since the danger 
was not that the people of New Mexico, present or 
future, would legalize slavery, but that the extension 
of the jurisdiction and laws of Texas, so as to cover 
this territory, would make New Mexico slaveholding 
in its own despite, drawing thither slaveholders and 
slavebreeders, and chaining that vast region ever- 
more to the car of the Slave-Power, as Western Vir- 
ginia and the mountain region of North Carolina, 
Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, were chained 
in defiance of that natural unfitness for profitable 
slave-culture, which Mr. Webster so forcibly indi- 



HENRY CLAY 433 

cated as " the law of God," prohibiting slavery, and 
needing no reenactment by man. 

After long debate the resolutions were made the 
special order for the following Tuesday, when Mr. 
Clay addressed the Senate at length in their favor 
till the adjournment, resuming and concluding his 
argument on the following da}^ The debate was 
continued until on the nth of March, Mr. Foote of 
Mississippi, asked unanimous consent to the taking 
up of a proposition submitted by Mr. Bell, in order 
to refer it to a committee such as he had already pro- 
posed, to consist of thirteen Senators ; six each from 
the slaveholding and non-slaveholding States re- 
spectively, and the thirteenth to be chosen by the 
twelve ; said committee to be charged with the duty 
of maturing some scheme of compromise for the 
final settlement of all pending questions relating to 
slavery and the territories. Of this committee, Mr. 
Clay was unanimously chosen chairman (April 19). 
Mr. Clay, on the 8th of May, made an elaborate re- 
port from a majority of this committee, affirming 
the propriety and necessity of a compromise and in- 
dicating the bases on which it should be effected. 
These bases were substantially as follows : — 

I. The admission of any new State or States 
formed out of Texas to be postponed until they shall 
hereafter present themselves to be received into the 
Union, when it will be the duty of Congress fairly 
and faithfully to execute the compact with Texas by 
admitting such new State or States with or without 
slavery as they shall by their constitutions determine. 

A.. B., VOL. vr. —28 



434 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

2. The admission forthwith of CaHfornia into the 
Union, with the boundaries which she has proposed. 

"3. The establishment of territorial governments without 
the Wilmot Proviso for New Mexico and Utah, embracing all 
the territory recently acquired by the United States from 
Mexico, not contained in the boundaries of California. 

"4. The combination of these two last-mentioned measures 
in the same bill. 

" 5. The establishment of the western and northern boun- 
dary of Texas, and the exclusion from her jurisdiction of all 
New Mexico, with the grant to Texas of a pecuniary equiva- 
lent ; and the section for that purpose to be incorporated into 
the bill admitting California, and establishing territorial gov- 
ernments for Utah and New Mexico. 

" 6. More effectual enactments to secure the prompt deliv- 
ery of persons bound to service or labor in one State, under 
the laws thereof, who escape into another State. And, 

"7. Abstaining from abolishing Slavery; but. under a 
heavy penalty, prohibiting the Slave-Trade in the District of 
Columbia." 

The committee's propositions differed, as will be 
seen, from Mr. Clay's original resolutions ; first, in 
affirming the absolute right of any new States which 
may be formed out of Texas to admission into the 
Union on the usual terms without regard to the ex- 
istence or non-existence of slavery therein ; and, sec- 
ondly, in combining- the admission of California in 
the same bill with the organization of the new terri- 
tories, and the settlement of the boundary of Texas 
— for this also was included in the Omnibus Bill, 
though the fact does not appear in the committee's 
synopsis above given. The Fugitive Slave Law and 
that prohibiting the slave-trade in the District of 
Columbia were presented in separate bills. The for- 



HENRY CLAY 435 

mer was substantially the bill submitted to the Sen- 
ate months before by Mr. Mason, of Virginia, as the 
^' Omnibus Bill " was in good part made up of the 
several bills providing for the admission of Califor- 
nia and the organization of the territories which had 
already been reported by Mr. Douglas from the Ter- 
ritorial Committee. The proposition to pay Texas a 
sum not then specified, but afterward fixed by Mr. 
Clay at $10,000,000, for the relinquishment of her 
claim to New Mexico, was the only portion of the 
plan of compromise absolutely original with Mr. 
Clay. 

The debate on this important report and the lead- 
ing bill accompanying it immediately commenced, 
and engrossed the time of the Senate for nearly three 
months. More than half the Senators made set 
speeches thereon. The bill was assailed with equal 
vigor and resolution from each side of Mason and 
Dixon's line by Messrs. Seward, Hale, Hamlin, 
Davis, Baldwin, Dayton, &c., on the part of the 
North ; and by Messrs. Hunter, Mason, Butler, Tur- 
ney, Yulee, Soule, Borland, &c.. on behalf of the 
South. Mr. Benton was likewise among its most 
vigorous and indefatigable opponents — resisting it, 
however, not on any ground of intrinsic objection to 
its material provisions, but mainly on that of the in- 
congruity of the various propositions composing it. 
This was, indeed, the weak point of the measure, and 
the able tacticians opposing it did not fail to per- 
ceive and profit by the fact. The bill was finally 
killed by an amendment moved by Mr. Dawson, of 
Georgia, and incautiously assented to by Mr. Clay, 



43^ AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

providing, in effect, that until such time as the 
boundary hue between the State of Texas and the 
territory of the United States be agreed to by the 
legislature of Texas, the territorial government for 
New Mexico, authorized by this act, shall not go into 
operation east of the Rio Grande, nor shall any State 
be established for New Mexico embracing any terri- 
tory east of the Rio Grande. This amendment was 
regarded by many friends of New Mexico who were 
also friends of the compromise as exposing that ter- 
ritory to be overrun and swallowed up by Texas — 
the very danger to avert which had been the chief 
inducement of their assent to the compromise. This 
amendment having been carried by a vote of 30 to 
28, Mr. Pearce, of Maryland, moved the striking out 
of all that portion of the bill which related to New 
Mexico which prevailed — Yeas, 33 ; Nays, 22 — and 
this proved the death-blow of the " Omnibus." The 
several portions of the bill were now successively 
stricken out, until there remained only the sections 
providing for the organization of the Territory of 
Utah, in which shape it was ordered to a third read- 
ing by a vote of 32 to 18. The bill in this shape 
passed on the ist of August, and was followed in the 
course of the session by separate bills providing for 
the admission of California, the organization of New 
Mexico with the settlement of the boundary of Texas 
on a basis which gives Texas far more and secures 
to New Mexico less territory than did the proposition 
of Mr. Clay in the Committee of Thirteen, while 
providing equally with that for the payment of the 
full $10,000,000 to Texas. The Fugitive Slave Act 



HENRY CLAY 437 

and the abolition of the slave-trade in the District, 
also passed both houses, were approved by the Presi- 
dent, and thus became laws of the land. Mr. Clay, 
however, w^orn out by his protracted labors and 
anxiety in leading the defence of the Omnibus bill, 
left his seat and the city on the 2d of August for a 
season of repose and medical treatment, and did not 
return till near the close of the month. Of all the 
measures originally included in the plan of compro- 
mise, there remained to be passed by the Senate only 
that providing for the abolition of the slave-trade in 
the District of Columbia, which he heartily sup- 
ported. 

Nothing further of moment occurred, so far as 
Mr. Clay was concerned, during the session, which 
w-as closed by adjournment on the 30th of Septem- 
ber, when Mr. Clay returned to his home in 
Kentucky. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

The River and Harbor Bill of 1851. 

The Thirty-first Congress commenced its second 
session on the second day of December, 1850; but 
Mr. Clay, on whom the weight of years began to 
press heavily, did not take his seat until the sixteenth 
of that month. The session was mainly devoted to 
routine business, in which he took little part, but 
evinced, on every suitable occasion, a pervading 
anxiety that the compromise measures of the pre- 
ceding session should remain undisturbed. His name 
heads a list of forty-four members of Congress, 
affixed to a public pledge not to support any opponent 
of those measures, of whatever party, for any re- 
sponsible station; and he voted uniformly against 
taking into consideration any memorials or remon- 
strances requiring the repeal or modification of any 
of those measures. It is hardly necessary to add, 
that a large majority of both houses stood with him 
on this point. 

He also evinced, on various occasions, an anxious, 
though not importunate, desire for a revision of the 
tariff of 1846, to the end that more efficient protec- 
tion might be afforded to our languishing manu- 
factures. 

On the 19th of February, the bill " Making Ap- 

438 



.?*' 



HENRY CLAY 439 

propriations for the Improvement of certain Harbors 
and Rivers " was received by the Senate from the 
House, where it had passed, the day previous, by a 
vote of 103 to 87. The bill, having thus reached the 
Senate, was referred to its Committee of Commerce, 
by which (February 25) it was reported back with- 
out amendment. 

On the 1st of March — there being but three days 
of the session remaining — Mr. Badger, of North 
Carolina, moved the postponement of the previous 
orders in favor of taking up the River and Harbor 
Bill. This motion was resisted by various Demo- 
cratic Senators, all strenuously insisting on giving 
precedence to various other measures. It was at 
once made manifest to the Senate, that the current 
rumor of a '' Democratic " caucus having determined 
that all decisive action on this bill should be staved 
off for the session, was well founded. 

With various amendments and legislative tricks, the minority 
staved off a vote upon the bill itself for two days of continuous 
discussion. On the last day of the session Mr. Clay made an 
"appeal to the justice, to the generosity, to the fairness of the 
minority, to say whether they will, if they have the power — as 
1 know they have the power — defeat the bill by measures of 
delay, and procrastination? If they are determined to do it, 
although such a determination is incompatible with the genius 
of all free governments, and I should hope, also, incompatible 
with the sense of propriety which each individual member 
must feel — if there is a determination upon the part of the 
minority to defeat the bill, by measures to which they have the 
power to resort, and they will avow it, for one, as I think it 
of the utmost importance that great measures connected with 
the operations and continuance of the Government — measures 
of appropriation — should be adopted, I will myself vote for 
the laying this bill upon the table. I hope there will be no 



440 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

such purpose. I trust that we shall take up the bill and vote 
upon it ; and I implore its friends, if they desire to pass it, 
to say not one word, but come to the vote upon it." 

Mr. Clay paused, but no member of the minority 
would avow the conspiracy which had really been 
formed to defeat the bill by talking against time, in- 
sidious propositions of amendment, and all manner 
of side-blows. Although that minority had already 
wasted many hours in reading old reports and dis- 
cussing irrelevant propositions with no other pur- 
pose than that of preventing any decisive action on 
the bill, yet they did not scruple to complain of a 
tvant of tunc for properly considering this subject, 
and on that ground demanded that the bill be given 
up by its friends. 

The debate still went on, however, and with more 
speeches and more amendments, the time was 
worried away until midnight. That hour afforded 
a pretext for a new discussion as to the right of the 
Senate to sit longer, and the validity of its acts in 
case it should do so, in which another hour was con- 
sumed. This interlude closed, as every one knew it 
must, by the Senate resolving that each Congress 
has a right to sit and act until noon on the 4th of 
March, or for two full years from the commencement 
of its legal powers, but by this time Mr. Clay bend- 
ing beneath the weight of years and worn out with 
severe and protract^l labor, perceiving that the bill 
was inevitably lost, had left the Senate for the night. 
Finally, after dragging on till four o'clock in the 
morning, and the minority successfully resisting 
every effort to reach a decisive vote, the bill was 



HENRY CLAY 44 T 

postponed (Yeas 29, Nays 19) to 8 o'clock, in order 
to take up and pass the appropriation bills. 

At the hour of eight, Mr. Clay was in his seat, 
ready for action, though many younger and stronger 
men were absent. But so much time was consumed 
in the passage of the appropriation l)ills that the 
River and Harbor bill could not be taken up. It lay 
dead on the table, having been defeated by the most 
unscrupulous exercise of the power granted to minor- 
ities in legislative bodies for the protection of their 
right of discussion, with no intent that the will of a 
majority should thereby be frustrated. And yet, in 
this case, for the sake of screening three or four 
Democratic aspirants to the presidency from voting 
on a measure with regard to which the dogmas of • 
the South and the interests of the West came in 
direct collision, the precious time of the Senate was 
recklessly wasted, and other measures of vital im- 
portance either wholly defeated, or driven througli 
with a haste which precluded even their reading in 
the Senate, though millions were voted away with 
them. 

The effort to pass the River and Harbor bill was 
the last earnest legislative struggle in which Mr. 
Clay was ever engaged. Though seventy-four years 
of age and not a member of the committee by which 
the bill was reported, he took his place naturally, and 
by sheer force of character, at the head of the ma- 
jority in that memorable though fruitless struggle. 
" His eye was not dim, neither was his natural force 
abated ; " and the spectator could not fail to admire 
the chivalry of nature and gallantry of bearing 
wherewith he led the charge against the strong 



442 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

abaftis of parliamentary privilege wherewith the 
minority had so formidably entrenched themselves. 
Though the Whig party numbered far less than half 
the Senate, } et on this question a clear majority were 
constrained to range themselves under his banner; 
and there was something impressive in the manner 
wherewith ]\Ir. Clay spoke of " We of the majority " 
desiring such and such action, and exhorted " you of 
the minority " to desist from unmanly bush-fighting, 
and allow the majority to pass the bill. I doubt 
whether there ever was an intelligent and independ- 
ent legislative assembly whereof Mr. Clay, being a 
member, would not in time have won a majority to 
his side — not, perhaps, in party designation, but in 
substance and practice. He led because he instinc- 
ti\ely perceived and chose the right path, in which 
the greater number could not choose but follow. 
And it was well that the last determined effort of the 
Great Commoner should be made in behalf of that 
cause which had so warmly enlisted his youthful en- 
ergies, and in whose advocacy he had first become 
known to the nation. More than forty years had 
now elapsed since the then youthful Senator from 
Kentucky had proposed a deliberate, persistent, and 
systematic devotion of a portion of the Federal rev- 
enues to the beneficent work of internal improve- 
ment ; and it was fit that the last echo of his trumpet 
voice should resound through that same chamber in 
unwavering, undying devotion to that same great 
and good cause. The stag, long hunted, had re- 
turned to his native heath to die; and the baying 
hounds cowered before the glance of his flashing eye 
until it closed in death. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

Response to Kossuth. — Illness and Death. 

Mr. Clay returned to his home on being released 
from his pubHc duties at Washington, and remained 
there through the summer, in dehcate, though not 
yet broken, health ; enjoying, for him, an unusual 
measure of quiet, and devoting himself mainly to 
his family, his rural pursuits, and a serene contem- 
plation of and preparation for the great change now 
manifestly approaching. 

The opening of the second session of the Thirty- 
second Congress found him again in Washington, 
but unable to take his seat in the Senate. In fact, 
none other than a patriot accustomed to think only 
of his country and his duty would have left home in 
his state of health for a distant field of arduous pub- 
lic effort. 

Four or five weeks afterward, Louis Kossuth vis- 
ited Washington, in compliance with the official in- 
vitation, and in due time paid his respects person- 
ally to Mr. Clay, still confined to his sick chamber; 
when, after the mutual interchange of civilities, Mr. 
Clay said : — 

" I owe you, sir, an apology for not having acceded before 
to the desire you were kind enough to intimate more than 
once to see me; but, really, my health has been so feeble that 

443 



444 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

I did not dare to hazard the excitement of so interesting an in- 
terview. Besides, sir (he added, with some pleasantry), your 
wonderful and fascinating eloquence has mesmerized so large 
a portion of our people wherever you have gone, and even 
some of our members of Congress (waving his hand toward 
the t\\o or three gentlemen who were present), that I feared 
to come under its influence, lest you might shake my faith in 
some principles in regard to the foreign policy of this govern- 
ment, which I have long and constantly cherished. 

'' I trust you will believe me, too, when I tell you that I en- 
tertain the liveliest sympathies in every struggle for liberty in 
Hungary, and in every country, and in this I believe I express 
the universal sentiment of my countrymen. But, sir, for the 
sake of my country, you must allow me to protest against the 
policy you propose to her. Waiving the grave and momentous 
question of the right of one nation to assume the executive 
power among nations for the enforcement of international 
law. or of the right of the United States to dictate to Russia 
the character of her relations with the nations around her. let 
us come at once to the practical consideration of the matter." 

Then, after showing the impracticabiHty of Amer- 
ica's giving " material aid," as of men and munitions 
of war, to the Hungarian revokition, he conchided : 

" By the policy to which we have adhered since the days of 
Washington, we have prospered beyond precedent — we have 
done more for the cause of liberty in the world than arms 
could eflfect. We have showed to other nations the way to 
greatness and happiness ; and. if we but continue united as 
one people, and persevere in the policy which our experience 
has so clearly and triumphantly vindicated, we may in another 
quarter of a century furnish an example which the reason of 
the world cannot resist. But if we should involve ourselves in 
the tangled web of European politics, in a war in which we 
could effect nothing, and if in that struggle Hungary should 
go down, and we should go down with her. where then would 
be the last hope of the friends of freedom throughout the 
world? Far better is it for ourselves, for Hungary, and for 



HENRY CLAY 445 

the catise of liberty, tbat, adhering to our wise, pacific sys- 
tem, and avoiding the distant wars of Europe, we should keep 
our lamp burning brightly on this western shore as a light to 
all nations, than to hazard its utter extinction, amid the ruins 
of fallen or falling republics in Europe." 

This matured and deliberate expression of Mr. 
Clay's views respecting the course which our gov- 
ernment should pursue with regard to European 
politics was the last counsel which fell from his lips 
with respect to public affairs. 

But higher themes engrossed in larger measure his 
time and thoughts. Mr. Clay had been through life 
an undoubting believer in Christian Revelation, 
whereof his own father had lived and died a minis- 
ter, while his mother and his wife were lifelong dis- 
ciples. Mr. Clay's piety was humble and self-dis- 
trustful, but his faith was firm and unclouded ; and, 
though his sufferings w^ere severe and protracted, he 
was resigned to their infliction as the salutary dis- 
cipline of a spirit which, in bygone years, had con- 
templated too fondly and engrossingly the fleeting 
vanities of earth. No hovel, no hospital, enclosed a 
Christian soul preparing to bid adieu to its tenement 
of flesh in more entire renunciation of self-righteous- 
ness, in more exclusive reliance on the mercy mani- 
fested through the world's Redeemer, than that of 
Henry Clay. 

On the 29th of June, at seventeen minutes past 
eleven o'clock, while no one was apprehending his 
immediate departure, and when only Governor 
Jones, of Tennessee, was present, with his son, his 
host, and his faithful servant, his breathing, which 



446 



AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 



had gradually grown faint and fainter, entirely 
ceased. So gentle and tranquil was the change, 
without convulsion or struggle, that his devoted at- 
tendants believed it but a momentary sleep, and bent 
over him in anxious hope of his speedy return to 
consciousness. That hope was destined not to be 
realized ; the mighty spirit had thus peacefully aban- 
doned its wasted tenement and soared on wings of 
light to the mansions of eternal rest. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

Eulogies in Congress. — Funeral Honors. 

The usual honors, of course, were paid in the two 
houses of Congress on the announcement of Mr. 
Clay's death, and when the houses reassembled for 
the more formal notification and for the eulogies by 
Senators upon that illustrious Senator and by Repre- 
sentatives upon the man who had had so distin- 
guished a career in the Lower House, many were the 
eloquent passages and pathetic allusions and ascrip- 
tions of lofty praise. Among them all we select a 
brief address by the Hon. James Brooks, a Repre- 
sentative from New York City, as perhaps the most 
comprehensive and the most justly descriptive of all 
these notable eulogies of the great Kentuckian : 

"Mr. Speaker, I rise to add my bumble tribute to the mem- 
ory of a great and good man now to be gathered to his 
fathers. I speak for and from a community, in whose hearts 
is enshrined the name of him whom we mourn ; who. how- 
ever much Virginia, the land of his birth, or Kentucky, the 
land of his adoption, may love him, is, if possible, loved where 
I live yet more. If idolatry had been Christian, or allowable 
even, he would have been our idol. But, as it is, for a quarter 
of a century now, his Imst, his portrait, or some medal, has 
been one of our household gods, gracing not alone the saloon, 
and the halls of wealth, but the humblest room or workshop 
of almost every mechanic or laborer. Proud monuments of 
his policy as a statesman, as my colleague has justly said, are 
all about us, and we owe to him, in a good degree, our 

447 



448 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

growth, our greatness, onr prosperity and happiness, as a 
people. 

" The great field of Henry Clay, Mr. Speaker, has been 
here, on the floor of this House, and in the other wing of the 
Capitol. He has held other posts of higher nominal distinc- 
tion, but they are all eclipsed by the brilliancy of his career 
as a Congressman. What of glory he has acquired, or what 
most endears him to his countrymen, have been won here, 
amid these pillars, under these domes of the Capitol. 

"'Si quceris monumentum circumspice.' 

" The mind of Mr. Clay has been the governing mind of 
the country, more or less, ever since he has been on the stage 
of public action. In a minority, or a majority — more, per- 
haps, even in a minority than in the majority — he seems to 
have had some commission, divine at it were, to persuade, to 
convince, to govern other men. His patriotism, his foresight, 
his grand conceptions, have created measures which the secret 
fascination of his manners, indoor, or his irresistible elo- 
quence without, have enabled him almost always to frame 
into laws. 

" Adverse Administrations have yielded to him, or been 
borne down by him, or he has taken them captive as a leader, 
and carried the country and Congress with him. This power 
he has wielded now for nearly half a century, with nothing but 
reason and eloquence to back him. And yet, when he came 
here, years ago, he came from a then frontier State of this 
Union, heralded by no loud trumpet of fame, nay, quite un- 
known, unfortified even by any position, social or pecuniary ; 
to quote his own words, his only ' heritage had been infanc}', 
indigence, and ignorance.' 

" In these days, Mr. Speaker, when mere civil qualifications 
for high public place — when long civil training and practical 
statesmanship — are held subordinate, a most discouraging 
prospect would be before our rising young men, were it not 
for some such names as Lowndes, Crawford, Clinton, Gaston, 
Calhoun, and Clay, scattered along the pages of our history, 
as stars or constellations in a cloudless sky. They shine forth, 
and show us that if the Chief-Magistracy cannot be won by 
such qualifications, a memory among men can be — a hold 



HENRY CLAY 44.9 

upon posterity as firm, as lustrous — nay, more imperishable. 
In the Capitolium of Rome there are long rows of marble 
slabs, on which are recorded the names of the Roman Con- 
suls; but the eye wanders over this wilderness of letters but 
to light up and to kindle upon some Cato or Cicero. To win 
such fame, thus unsullied, as Mr. Clay has won. is worth any 
man's ambition. And how w^as it won? By courting the 
shifting gales of popularity? No, never! By truckling to 
the schemes, the arts, and seductions of the demagogue? 
Never, never! His hardest battles as a public man — his great- 
est, most illustrious achievemients — have been against, at first, 
an adverse public opinion. To gain an imperishable name, 
he has often braved the perishable popularity of the moment. 
That sort of courage which, in a public man, I deem the high- 
est of all courage ; that sort of courage most necessary under 
our form of government to guide as well as to save a State, 
Mr. Clay w^as possessed of — more than any public man I ever 
knew. Mere physical courage, valuable, indispensable though 
it be, w^e share but with the brute — but moral courage, to 
dare to do right, amid all temptations to do wrong, is, as it 
seems to me, the very highest species, the noblest heroism, 
under institutions like ours. ' I had rather be right than be 
President,' was Mr. Clay's sublime reply w^hen pressed to re- 
frain from some measure that would mar his popularity. 
These lofty words were a clew to his whole character — the 
secret of his hold upon the heads as well as hearts of the 
American people — nay, the key to his immortality. 

" Another of the keys, Mr. Speaker, of his universal reputa- 
tion, was his intense nationality. When taunted but recently, 
almost within our hearing as it were, on the floor of the Sen- 
ate, by a Southern Senator, as being a Southern man unfaith- 
ful to the South, his indignant but patriotic exclamation 
w^as : ' I know no Soutli — no North, no East, no West.' The 
country, the tvhole country, loved, adored, reverenced such a 
man. The soil of Virginia may be his birthplace : the sod of 
Kentucky w^ill cover his grave — what was mortal they claim — 
but the spirit, the soul, the genius of the mighty man, the im- 
mortal part, these belong to his country and to his God." 

At the funeral services in the Senate-chamber, the 

A. B., VOL. VI. — 29 



450 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

chaplain made a most affecting address. The ritual 
of the Episcopal Church closed the solemn service, 
and the body was removed to the Rotunda, that his 
sorrowing countrymen might gaze upon that face in 
death which has cheered them so much while living. 

The funeral cortege, with the mortal remains of 
the departed statesman, left Washington by railroad 
soon after the conclusion of the above services, halt- 
ing for the night at Baltimore, where the whole peo- 
ple came out to attest by fit observances their affec- 
tion and sorrow. Thence it proceeded next day, halt- 
ing briefly at \\'ilmington, to Philadelphia, where the 
most impressive honors were paid to the mighty dead 
by countless thousands. The next day (Saturday) 
it moved on to New York, halting briefly at the prin- 
cipal villages of New Jersey, where Mr. Clay had 
ever been most deeply beloved and warmly sup- 
ported. While it remained in New York, more than 
thirty thousand persons passed in succession through 
the Governor's Room to gaze at the closed coflin 
which shrouded from view the deserted tenement of 
Genius and Patriotism. On Monday morning the 
procession departed by steamboat for Albany, and 
thence took its way, by railroad, through Ithaca, 
Syracuse, Rochester, to Buffalo, thence by steamboat 
to Cleveland, by railroad to Cincinnati, and so by 
Louisville to Lexington, everywhere evoking from 
the entire community unanimous manifestations of 
a fond and tender regard for the great and good 
statesman so ripely called to everlasting rest. Party 
differences were utterly forgotten; the miserable 



HENRY CLAY 45 1 

calumnies which for a season had clouded the fame 
of the noblest living American were remembered, if 
at all, only as deeply disgraceful to their inventors; 
and the whole American people mingled their tears 
of fond and grateful sorrow above the urn that en- 
closed the dust which once was Henry Clay. And 
thus, his ashes were laid to rest, on Saturday, July 
lOth, at the city he had early chosen for his home, 
and among the people who had admired, supported, 
and loved him with unwavering fidelity through all 
the storms and calms of more than half a century of 
eventful public life. There let the marble rise proud- 
ly and gracefully above his silent dust ; but that will 
not be his only nor his noblest memorial. Wherever 
our seamen shall ride out a tempest in safety, pro- 
tected by the piers and breakwaters of our Atlantic 
or inland harbors — wherever internal trade shall find 
a highway opened for it over mountains or through 
morasses by the engineer's science and the laborer's 
sturdy arm — wherever Industry shall see its pursuits 
diversified and its processes perfected through the 
naturalization among us of new Arts or the diffusion 
of Manufacturing efficiency — there shall henceforth 
arise in the hearts of grateful Freemen enduring 
monuments to the genius, the patriotism, the states- 
manship, the beneficence, of our beloved Henry 
Clay. 



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